Crossing Stars
by DuchessOfDementia
Summary: AU. Arya Stark was not 'trapped' in a marriage. The word 'trapped' would imply that her husband actually cared that she kept slipping out in the middle of the night to see Tobho Mott's strapping young apprentice.
1. Wolves In The Desert

**(AU: In which Jon Arryn never goes poking around Joffrey's parentage and dies of natural causes several years after he is killed in the canon series.)**

"Arya, _honestly_. The king's _entire_ retinue is coming today, and you look like you've just been rolling around with a sow," Sansa said with a scowl that ruined her pretty face, looking over her sister.

Arya frowned, pulling at her tunic and looking down to inspect it. Arya had been riding with Bran since dawn, and she had to concede that Sansa had a point; her roughspun clothes were _filthy_.

"Fine," she said sourly, bumping past her sister and making her squeal about getting dirt on her gown. Arya stomped to the bathhouse, peeling off her clothing and slipping her sore flesh into the boiling water. Her thighs were aching, but the hot water helped loosen them. Arya heard the door open and turned to see Sansa moving towards her, all disgust gone from her face. Sansa had removed her shoes. She walked towards Arya and bent over, dipping her hands in the water and helping to wash her hair. Arya bit back a smile.

When Sansa had deemed her clean, she'd wrapped her in bath linens and taken her back to the tower to be dressed, perfumed, and preened for the king.

"This one will be _perfect_," Sansa cooed, laying a silver Southron gown on Arya's bed. "Your eyes will look splendid."

Arya blinked at the thing, imagining that she would look more like a cod and less like a 'splendid' lady. However, she said nothing as Sansa slid the bath linens from her shoulders.

"Aren't you the least bit anxious to see Renly?" Sansa asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "I understand if you aren't _excited_, exactly, but aren't you even _curious_? He is a wonderful match for you, after all. The brother of the king and the lord of Storm's End is an excellent bid for a second daughter. You should be happy father arranged it!"

Arya shrugged as she pulled up her smallclothes. Sansa silently urged her to lift her arms before she dropped the floaty silver gown over Arya's head. "It doesn't matter if I like him or not. We'll still be married. Best not to get my hopes in either direction, I say. How about you and your _lord_?"

Sansa was fighting a huge smile. "Well, I've heard good things about him," she said, her eyes distant and dreamy as they undoubtedly danced off to a place full of Edric Dayne. Arya had heard he was sweet, fair-haired and fair-faced; perfect for Sansa. She had heard Renly was handsome as well, and capable too, but she refused to trust any gossip until she saw him for herself.

By the time Sansa was finished lacing her into her dress—making Arya feel very much like she was in some kind of cage—Arya's hair was nearly dry. Sansa set to work on plaiting it into one of the complicated, many-tendriled braids she fancied so much.

"Do you know when father plans to send us south?" Arya asked quietly, staring into her own eyes.

Sansa did not look up from her work. "Soon, I'd wager. I know that _I'm_ going as quickly as possible, since all that business with the Martells has been sorted out in Dorne and it's safe to go now. You'll probably go soon, too."

Arya refused to flinch at that. Sooner than she wanted, Sansa had finished her braid and circled it into a pretty, ornate bun at the base of her neck. Sansa leaned against her sister, affectionately placing her chin on her shoulder. The two of them hardly bonded, but on a day like today, Arya was terribly grateful to have her sister. She was the absolute _worst_ at being a highborn lady—probably the worst in the Seven Kingdoms—and without Sansa's advice, she was certain she would have Renly Baratheon running screaming from the castle before long.

"Lyanna Stark would swoon with envy to see you," Sansa whispered in Arya's ear, both of them staring at Arya in the mirror. With her hair and face clean, her features were bright and distinct, and even Arya thought she looked quite comely. Sansa had been right about the colour of the dress, of course; Sansa was always right about those things.

Nevertheless, Arya cocked an eyebrow. "I thought I was 'Arya Horseface'."

Sansa frowned. "I didn't mean all of that when I said it, you know. About you being ugly. I was being cruel and stupid." Sansa brushed a small hair behind Arya's ear. "I used to think being a lady was all that mattered. But you would make a boring lady and a terrible one besides. I much prefer you as a wildling. You make me look better," Sansa said, smirking at her.

Smiling, Arya decided that she liked Sansa a lot better when she was betrothed.

The two sisters giggled and scandalised one another for another hour—Sansa with her gossip and Arya with her crude japes and stories—until the horns sounded, announcing the king.

They ran to the window, crowding each other to see. Sure enough, a massive retinue of at least two-hundred people were easing through the gates of Castle Winterfell, the occasional Baratheon banner floating amongst them.

"Come on," Sansa said, taking her hand. "You shouldn't be late."

Arya kept praying that something would come up to delay them. She even contemplating deliberately tripping down the tower stairs and breaking her leg, just to stave off all of this for a little longer. Everyone said she was ready to be married, but she certainly didn't _feel_ that way.

Arya felt her heart beating against her ribs like a hammer as Sansa led her by the elbow to their family, all assembled in a neat line. She and Sansa had hurriedly thrown light furs over the shoulders as they passed through the Great Hall, but Arya felt completely bare as they passed all of the Stark bannermen. She knew that they knew what this moment meant for her; somehow, that made it worse.

Jory Cassel put a hand on her shoulder briefly as she passed and murmured "Don't be afraid. You're lovely as the moon."Arya felt a rush of affection for him as she weakly tried to return his reassuring smile, wishing recklessly that she could instead be marrying someone she knew, someone she trusted; someone like Jory.

When she and Sansa fell in line between Robb and Bran, Arya felt like a terrified rabbit, ready to bolt at first sight of a predator.

She saw King Robert meander forward on his horse before slipping off it and walking towards her family. A tall, austere beauty with gold hair that she knew must be the queen followed him. Arya's eyes looked through the crowd, trying to find her betrothed, but there were too many men dressed in finery for her to discern which was Renly.

Robert made some jape at her father before booming with laughter and embracing him. He greeted her mother in a similarly familiar way, fondly calling her "Cat", and then came to Robb, to whom he'd promised princess Myrcella once she flowered. Robert clapped him on the back and muttered something that made them both laugh. When he came to Sansa, he smiled, making little folds appear around his eyes.

"Oh, Cat, this one's the spittin' image o' you!" he chucked Sansa under the chin. "The Lord of Starfall is a lucky man indeed."

Sansa smiled graciously, curtsying and thanking him. When Robert turned to Arya, she was shocked to see his smile instantly fall.

"Seven hells," he muttered, slowly approaching her, looking as if he didn't even know he was doing it. Arya watched him with a furrowed brow, wondering if she had something in her hair or on her face that Sansa hadn't noticed. She felt suddenly uncomfortable.

"Your Grace," she murmured awkwardly, preparing to curtsey but halted when the king shot out an arm to stop her. "No," he said with a thick swallow. "You'll be my good-sister soon, Lady Arya. None of that."

Arya blinked, puzzled. Robert licked his lips, his eyes full of something that confused and bothered Arya.

"You're a pretty thing," he said, dropping his gaze to the ground as if he could not bear to look at her any longer. "Renly'll like you, I'm sure."

When he moved to greet Bran, his cheer seeming to come back to him, Arya glanced over to Sansa, who only shrugged. Her eyes scanned the yard, puzzled, before they came to rest on the queen. She was giving Arya a curious look too; not one of disdain, but one of..._recognition_, it looked like. And she wouldn't stop _staring_. She looked like she was seeing a ghost.

xxx

The banquet went as well as could be expected.

Arya was pleased to learn that Renly was just as handsome as her mother had insisted he was. The best thing about Renly, though, was not his looks; he'd sworn to Arya that when they went to court, he'd buy her a new horse and go riding with her, and that they could go swimming and hunting at his castle in Storm's End if she liked. Arya's greatest fear concerning marriage was that she would end up spending the rest of her life birthing babies and sewing and gossiping, but it didn't seem as if Renly was interested in making her do any of that.

"I've heard about you," he'd said, a twinkle in his Baratheon blue eyes. "I know better than to try and make the famous Arya Stark into some boring little housewife."

She hadn't been able to keep from smiling.

Arya felt less badly about leaving home than she thought she would. Her father, mother and Bran were coming along, and she was going to return within the year anyway for Robb and Myrcella's wedding; even Sansa would be there.

Renly entertained her every day without fail, constantly making her laugh and telling her stories about Storm's End and King's Landing. He felt less like a stranger trying to become her lover—as she'd felt around all other potential suitors—and more like a friend. She found herself oddly being reminded of Jon, before remembering that she was _marrying_ Renly, and thinking of him as a brother was probably not the best thing she could do.

For the next moon, all she did during her days was ride, speak with Renly, ride, jape and laugh with Bran, ride, have her hair tousled by Jory, ride, curl up with Sansa to sleep. Arya never thought she would enjoy whispered conversations with her sister while they lay in bed, waiting for slumber, but she had used to think she would never get married, too.

Sansa never tried to talk to her about overtly ladylike things, knowing Arya would scoff and dismiss the conversation. Instead they discussed visiting each other's castles, exploring their new lands, learning new customs. Arya had to admit that she was excited about going to King's Landing; she would miss Winterfell terribly, but she had always wanted to see more of the world.

"I'll get you a Dornish sand steed," Sansa swore. "I know I cannot discourage you from riding, and it looks as if you've got a husband who won't mind you doing it anyway. I'd rather get you a gift you'll use, since I know that if I get you a fine gown, you'll be using it as stable bedding within the week anyhow."

Arya had grinned at that. "I should like a sand steed," she murmured back. "I hear there are no faster horses."

"Edric says so," Sansa said with a short nod. "I'll get you the strongest and fastest one the breeders have."

Arya had never loved Sansa more.

xxx

By the time they reached King's Landing, Arya and Sansa were forced to part, as Sansa had to keep riding south. Arya had let Sansa kiss her on the crown of her head and embrace her. She could only remember embracing her sister a handful of times in her life, and though they had never been very close before the past few months, Arya felt as if she was losing a half of her; the comelier, more pleasant half of her.

"You'll write?" Sansa asked. Arya smiled, blinking back tears that had sprung to her eyes. "Yes, all the time," she promised, letting Sansa take her into her arms again. When her sister leaned away, she _was_ crying. Sansa wiped the tears away with her dainty fingers before moving to bid their parents and Bran goodbye as well.

After Sansa's retinue rode away, the king's bannermen rode on into the city. Arya marvelled, open-mouthed and staring, at the huge, sand-coloured walls and the endless winding roads filled with so many people that Arya thought that the city may burst. It was so warm there, and Arya could feel sweat beading on her neck and back. The Red Keep stood tall and imposing at the end of city, and for the first time, Arya realised that this was her _home_ now.

A week into their arrival, the date for she and Renly's wedding had been set. She was to marry him at the next turn of the moon, in three weeks' time. During the day, Arya was instructed to spend her time socialising with Renly, and while they had obeyed that order for the first few days, Renly had surprised her by cutting her free one morning.

"I'm quite sick of sitting in my solar all day—even if it is with you," he'd said with a wolfish grin that reminded Arya of Jon again.

"What would you have me do, then?" Arya asked, puzzled and blinking.

Renly beckoned her forward, a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. "Well, I've been challenged by my friend Ser Loras to a game of cyvasse; he's slandering my name all over the castle, you see. And if you'd like, you can take my horse and see the city."

Arya had not needed him to repeat himself.

An hour later she was donning her favourite breeches and a leather cuirass Robb had had specifically made for her, built for a woman's body. Her hair tied up into a bun, she was bounding through twisting, jagged streets on the back of Renly's courser, breezing past brothels, stores and pot shops. She smiled jubilantly at the little market stands she encountered and marvelled when she happened upon a lovely fountain. Around midday, she happened upon a large store on the Street of Steel with smoke rising from a hole in its roof.

_A forge, _she thought instantly, and sure enough, a sign dangling from iron chains announced it to be _Tobho Mott's Smithy. _

When she was around two-and-ten, Needle's pommel had become too small for her hand and she was forced to put it away. She had been desperate to acquire a new sword since then, but her father had ordered every smith in Winterfell off of her. _In King's Landing, though..._

Arya slipped from the courser before tying him sturdily to a stake outside, conscious of the fact that someone could try to steal him. She strode to the store's entrance, pushing the creaky wooden door open.

It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, smoke-filled room she suddenly found herself in. Between coughs, she managed to call, "Hello?" into the store.

"Just a minute," returned what sounded like a young man's voice from the back of the shop. Arya glanced around, her eyes finished watering, and noticed that the walls were decorated with some of the finest blades she had ever seen short of Valyrian steel. She approached them, awestruck, reaching up to touch the gleaming blade of a longsword.

"Oi!"

Arya flipped around, startled. She met the gaze of a tall, broad young man dressed in a smith's apron. Sweat-slicked black hair hung in his eyes and he was gripping a hammer firmly in his hand. Arya found herself suddenly struck by his resemblance to Renly, her betrothed.

"No touching," he said, looking her over with eyes as crisp and blue as her soon-to-be-husband's. "What's a girl doin' here, anyhow?"

"I was interested in having a sword made," she said, hoping that she did not look too much like she was staring. This boy looked younger than Renly; closer to Robb or Jon in age.

"Alright, for whom?" he asked, crossing his arms. Arya swallowed when she saw the way tendrils of muscular vein protruded from them. Renly certainly did not have arms like that.

"For me," she said, tearing her eyes back to his face.

The boy's eyebrows lifted until they disappeared under his hair. "_You_? But you're just a little girl. What would _you_ need a sword for?"

"I'm four-and-ten, I'm not a _girl_," she snapped, indignant. "And I'll pay you well. Isn't that what you want? Gold?"

He snorted. "S'pose so, but I ain't makin' a sword until you tell me why you need one."

"Do you make everyone who comes in here tell you why they need a sword?"

"No."

"Then I won't," she huffed. "I'll just find another smith."

"Now hold on there, miss," the boy called after her as she turned to leave. "I wouldn't trust the other smiths on this street with your gold _or_ your presence. If you'd like a sword so badly, I'll forge you one."

Arya beamed. "For true?"

"Yeah."

She closed the door to the shop and stepped back inside. "I'm Arya," she said.

"Arya," he repeated, nodding. "It's pretty."

"What's your name?" she pressed, ignoring the way his compliment made her stomach shiver in a nice way.

"Gendry," he replied, hooking his thumbs into his belt and smiling at her. "Armourer's apprentice."


	2. Travel In Packs

Arya had been back to Tobho Mott's Smithy twice already to check on the progress of her sword.

The first time, she'd had her hand fitted for a pommel. She shook off the strange memory of how nice it had felt when Gendry had fit his hand over hers that day, pressing it into the mould. Arya found she enjoyed her time with the blacksmith very much. He was likeable and funny, and best of all, he treated her as if she were any lowborn girl, since he didn't know otherwise. He told her about all the weapons in the shop and even showed her a nice bull-shaped helm he'd made all on his own. When Arya asked about a price, thinking Robb or Jon might really love such a fine helm, he'd smugly told her it wasn't for sale and chucked her under the chin, making her flush.

"So, where're you from?" he asked idly one morning as she watched him work. The shop rang with the clamour of hammer-on-steel, but Arya was growing used to it.

"What d'you mean?"

"You aren't from King's Landing, girl. Any fool could see that."

She frowned. He was perceptive, and that could potentially be bad. But she found she didn't care very much. "I'm from Winterfell," she answered. "In the North."

"Winterfell?" he repeated, glancing up for a moment to give her an incredulous look. "What in seven hells are you doing all the way down here?"

She hesitated. "Family affairs," she answered.

Gendry just shrugged. "Fair enough reason for me."

"How about you? Have you always lived here?"

"Born and raised," he replied, not looking up. His brow was furrowed, as if he wasn't proud of that fact.

"And _your_ family?" she inquired.

Gendry stopped hammering for a minute, staring at a spot on the anvil. "Haven't got one," he said shortly, returning to his work.

"Everyone's got a family," Arya said with a frown. "What, did Tobho Mott find you in a bush?"

"He may as well have," Gendry said with a sigh. "Never knew my dad, and my mum died when I was little. Master Mott took me on as an apprentice, said I had the 'strong' look about me."

And he did. But Arya didn't say so out loud. "That was kind of him."

"Aye," was all Gendry said.

Arya took a few steps forward, looking to check the progress of her sword.

"You'll want to keep back," Gendry warned her with a half-smile that annoyed her by making her stomach all squirrely. "The cinders'll scorch your face."

"Your face looks fine to me," Arya said, blushing a moment later when she realised what she'd said. He didn't seem to notice.

"Well, it's made so as not to fling cinders at the smith. _You're_ on the wrong side."

Arya huffed, walking over to his side. "There. Now I'm on the _right_ side."

He gave her a sidelong glance, still half-smiling. Arya swallowed.

"So tell me about Winterfell," he prompted.

Arya smiled, thinking of her home. "It's nothing like it is here. There're forests all around; everything's green. And there's a godswood in the castle, too."

"You've been inside the _castle_?" he asked, giving her a curious look.

Arya blanched. "S-Serving maid," she lied. "My mum and sister too."

Gendry looked her over quickly and shrugged. "Didn't you freeze up there, though?"

"No. There's hot springs underneath, and the water's piped all throughout the castle to keep it warm."

Gendry whistled, his eyes widened. "Must've been comfortable."

Arya smiled fondly. "Its home."

"Well, King's Landing's not so bad, y'know," Gendry said, a strange look in his eye when he glanced at her again. His voice sounded almost offended. "Certainly a lot more to explore. That seems like your sort of thing."

"What makes you say that?" Arya said a bit too snappishly, her eyes widening.

Gendry raised his free hand defensively. "I didn't mean no offense, Miss Arya. It's just that you're the first girl to ever come in here who wasn't with her father or her husband. It isn't often that ladies go around askin' for swords, y'know."

"I'm _not_ a lady," she snapped.

A grin slowly spread across Gendry's face. Arya didn't know why, but she found him to be more handsome than Renly, even when soot smeared his cheeks and sweat shone on his skin.

Or mayhaps _because_ of that.

"Please forgive me, Miss Arya. So if you're not a lady, what are you? 'Cos you look like a lady to me."

"No," she said, frustrated for a lot of reasons, "I look like a _girl_. A girl and a lady are different, you know. There's a woman called the Maid of Tarth who wears armour and bears a sword and fights in tourneys. _She_ isn't a lady."

"What, and after I finish this sword, you gonna don some armour and fight in tourneys, too?"

Arya wrinkled her nose. "No. I can't. But I'll practise with it."

"Practise for what, if it's alright that I'm askin'?"

Arya shrugged. "I just like to fight. I've never been good at being a girl."

Gendry kept his eyes fixed on his work, but a small smile came to his lips.

"What?" she demanded. Arya hated it when others were amused at her expense.

Gendry chuckled. "It's nothin', Miss Arya."

"No it's not."

Gendry stopped hammering again and turned to look at her. Arya had forgotten she was standing so close to him.

"I was only thinkin' that it was a shame that a pretty girl like you has no _interest_ in bein' a girl."

Arya wondered absently why everyone had picked _now_ to start thinking she was pretty. "In Winterfell they called me 'Arya Horseface' and 'Arya Underfoot'."

"_Horseface_?" Gendry repeated with a bout of strong laughter. The folds of his eyes crinkled when he did, like King Robert's. "Probably because they'd like to ride you like a horse, girl."

Arya's eyes widened to dinner plates, but Gendry only turned back to his work, still laughing. Arya had never been spoken to like that before by _anyone_; not even her brothers and Theon. She remembered again that she was just a lowborn to Gendry, not Arya Stark of House Winterfell, future Lady of Storm's End; and lowborn boys and girls made crude japes at each other.

"Where is Master Tobho, anyway?" she asked, raising a trembling hand to pat her flushed cheeks. "I've yet to see him."

"He's up at the castle, doin' some work for some lord or another."

Arya nodded, only half-hearing his words.

She hadn't decided yet if she enjoyed it or not, but Gendry the armourer's apprentice certainly did have a strange kind of sway over her.

_xxx_

Arya had fallen into the routine of slipping into King's Landing during the day to see Gendry. She couldn't be certain, but she had the sneaking suspicion that he was deliberately putting off giving her the finished sword; he kept claiming that the blade was bent or the pommel twisted and that he had to work on it more.

"I won't cheat you by sellin' you some cheap piece of metal," he'd said. "You'll get your money's worth from me. I promised you that much."

But then he'd looked her over in this strange way that reminded her of how Theon would look at pretty serving girls, and she wasn't entirely sure he was telling the truth.

Her time at the Red Keep was more unbearable than ever before; when she supped with her family and the king's family and all the courtiers, all she could think about was where Gendry was and what he was doing and if he was having a laugh without her. To make matters worse, she kept catching the king staring at her like he had in Winterfell. Sometimes he had the shame to look away when she caught him, but when he had had enough to drink, he would just stare blatantly at her until Arya's father or the queen noticed and managed to tear his attention away. Arya didn't like or understand the way he looked at her; she was barely a woman, the daughter of his best friend, and betrothed to his brother. By all means, if the king had any honour at all, he would not look at her with desire.

One evening, when Arya was in the solar reading with her mother, she asked her why king Robert looked at her like that. Catelyn had paled.

"Arya, that's a rude thing to ask."

"Well, staring is rude, too!"

Catelyn shifted nervously, glancing all over her daughter. "You remind him of someone, I believe."

Arya was confused only for a moment before remembering what Sansa had said. Her eyebrows slowly rose. "Lyanna Stark?" she ventured.

Catelyn's gaze fell sideways. Arya closed her book and leaned forward. "Is that why he looks at me like that, mother?"

"He will not hurt you," Catelyn said firmly, turning to look at her. Her hard eyes softened immediately and she smiled sadly. Arya wondered if her mother was seeing Lyanna, too. The good-sister she almost had. "You have grown to resemble her so much. Your father sometimes tells me he cannot believe how alike you two are."

"Lyanna Stark was kidnapped," Arya said, repeating what Septa Mordane had told her and Sansa as children. "I would never let someone kidnap me."

Something flickered in Catelyn's gaze. "Kidnapped," she breathed, her eyes falling to the floor and her back stiffening. "...Yes."

When Arya had tried to broach the subject further, her mother had complained of headaches and left the room. Arya wondered what Lyanna must have been like if her memory alone could incite such strange and passionate responses; and what that meant for her, since she seemed to remind everyone older than Robb of the kidnapped bride.

Being around Renly made her time at the Red Keep easier. He joked with her, sometimes a bit cruder than was appropriate for lords and ladies, reminding her so much of Gendry. It was a strange feeling he gave her, Arya thought. While being near him seemed to ease her ache for Gendry's company, sometimes it only made it worse. Whenever Renly stopped short of an excellent jape for fear of being improper, or spoke with his fine noble diction, Arya would always think, _That's not how Gendry would've done it._

She knew so little about the smith's apprentice, but that didn't stop her from thinking on him when she was in bed waiting for sleep.

Two weeks before their wedding, Renly took Arya down under the Red Keep to see the dragon skulls at her request. Arya was staring and gaping like a curious child when he led her by the hand into the cryptlike tunnels, winding and mysterious.

"Why did the king keep the dragon skulls?" Arya asked curiously. "If he hated the Targaryens so much, I mean."

Renly shrugged. "There are no more left, so it would be a waste to toss them. Besides, I think he keeps them as some sort of war prize."

"Because the kingdom wasn't enough of a prize?" Arya said with a wry smile, making Renly laugh. She was quiet for a moment as they walked. "I heard stories back in Winterfell. That one Targaryen survived."

"Yes, my brother heard about that, too," Renly said, his expression thoughtful. "Sent an assassin, but...well, clearly that didn't go over well."

"Is it true what they say? That she has dragons?"

Renly's gaze fell to the side. "That is what the stories say."

Arya did not push the topic, even thought she was wildly curious and it seemed like Renly knew a lot more than he was telling. Arya supposed she'd have to get used to holding her tongue, since she was going to be a wife and the Lady of Storm's End soon.

The two of them passed the Kingslayer, the queen's brother, while walking under the Keep. He did not glanced at them as he chatted to a weathered but strong-looking man about a sword. She recognised the man from some vague conversation days earlier, when he'd been speaking to her father and she'd introduced herself.

They only walked a bit more before Renly put a hand on her shoulder to still her.

He did not need to tell her they had made it to their destination. Arya gave a little gasp and ran to the first skull she saw; it was the colour of white sand, all sharp, jutting jawline and smooth cranium. And those _teeth_.

"How many are there?" she asked, glancing around at them all, mounted on little pedestals as they were.

"Nineteen," Renly said, smiling like a father humouring his child.

"They're..." Arya thought to say _incredible, _or _sublime_ perhaps. But neither of those seemed to express the magnitude of it. "Magical," she settled.

_xxx_

The next day, Renly was going to see Ser Loras again, giving Arya another day in King's Landing to herself. When she rode into the city that day, her hair whipping around her eyes and a silly grin on her face, she wondered what Gendry would say when she told him about the dragon skulls. She'd have to come up with a lie to justify being in the Keep at all—Arya had decided that she would tell him she was a serving girl, there to clean the cells—but she would tell him everything else true as she'd seen it, she thought.

Staying her horse in front of the familiar little armoury, Arya slipped from her saddle, tied the beast to the stake and made her way inside.

"Gendry?" she called, waving her arm in front of her face to shoo away the smoke. "Are you in?"

"Here," he returned, appearing from the back room with a smile. Arya found herself smiling, too.

"Have you finished my sword?" she had greeted him this way five times now.

"Nearly, Miss Arya," he swore, his face a picture of honest innocence. "I only want to make sure it's to your liking."

"It's been nearly a week," she said, shooting him a playful scowl. "And I've been prepared to pay you for just as long."

"So eager to stop seein' me?" he said, winking at her. Arya shifted on her feet, licking her lips.

"No." She hadn't been able to think of anything clever to say.

Gendry chuckled. "You're honest, at least. I like that. You gonna stay while I work?"

Arya nodded, smiling shyly and inwardly despising it. Sansa was the only Stark sister who blushed and smiled at boys; Arya was supposed to be like steel. Never bending, never breaking.

So why did she feel more like rubber around Gendry?

"You'll never guess what I saw yesterday," she said, her excitement making a grin split across her face as Gendry went to lift his hammer. "In the cellars at the Red Keep. I saw _dragon skulls_."

Gendry's face was shocked for a moment before it was confused. "The Red Keep? What you doin' in _there_?"

"I'm a serving girl at the castle," Arya lied smoothly, pleased that she had thought to prepare the story. "I was cleaning out the cells when I saw them. They're _massive_—bigger than that over there," she said, pointing to a set of burnished armour by the wall.

Gendry was staring at her interestedly, his hammer lying still in his hand, his work seemingly forgotten. "What did they look like?" he asked quietly.

"Just like you imagine—a big lizard's head. A bit like a bird too, actually. With horns and spikes and rows and rows of teeth."

Gendry was quiet for a moment before whistling softly. "Wish I could've seen it."

Arya opened her mouth to offer to take him before realising that she would never be able to take Gendry anywhere near her real life; Arya Stark's life. She found that she preferred being 'Miss Arya', the lowborn girl who was friends with Gendry.

She studied him curiously for a moment. "Do you have a surname, Gendry?" she asked, realising she'd never heard him give one out. He had introduced himself to her as _Gendry, armourer's apprentice_.

Gendry looked down, studying his hammer with a drawn brow. "Waters," he murmured so quietly that she almost missed it.

"Waters?" Arya repeated, blinking. "That's an odd surname."

Gendry gave her a funny look. "It's a bastard's surname, Arya." She felt a tiny wiggle go up her spine when he called her that. No one besides her family had ever referred to her as just 'Arya'. Even Jory and Septa Mordane called her 'milady'. "Bastards born in the Crownlands get the surname 'Waters'."

Arya frowned. "I thought that was only for the natural children of nobles. Smallfolk"—Arya swallowed—"like _us_ just take their father's name, don't they?"

"Well, I haven't the slightest idea who my father is, and my mum didn't have no surname either. So I'm a Waters." Gendry gave her another queer look. "And don't go callin' me a 'natural son' to spare my feelins', Miss Arya. Call me what I am. A bastard."

"One of my brothers is a bastard," she said suddenly, thinking of Jon, so far away on the Wall. "And he was the kindest and best brother you could have."

Gendry's mouth did a funny little half-smile that she found herself liking better than his grin. "Is that right? Well, I'm glad to know you don't mind bein' around baseborns, then. Would've been sad if you ran off with your nose in the air."

"I wouldn't do that!" she said, aiming a blow at his shoulder.

"_Ouch_! Arya!" Gendry said between incredulous laughs.

"Arya Stark?"

Arya and Gendry's heads both snapped up. The person who'd spoken was an aging man in the doorway, dressed in blacksmith garb that was slightly finer than Gendry's. Arya recognised him as the man she'd seen in the cells of the Red Keep with the Kingslayer.

Gendry did a little bow. "Master Mott," he said respectfully before awkwardly stepping away from Arya.

Tobho Mott's drawn face was displeased. "D'you know who this is, boy?"

Gendry glanced over to her quizzically before turning back to his master. "Arya, the girl I'm makin' a sword for. I told you about it."

"And do you know this girl's surname?"

Gendry gave her another confused look. "I dunno. Just...Arya."

Arya got a nervous little twist in her stomach. She _liked_ being 'just Arya'. She didn't want Gendry to know about the name Tobho Mott had called her when he came in.

"This is Lady Arya of House Stark, _stupid_ boy. She's here to marry the Lord of Storm's End, the king's brother."

"The _king's_ broth-?" Gendry whipped his head around to look at her, his eyes wide with a strange mix of anger, confusion, and panic. Arya squirmed under those eyes.

"She's a highborn, so you best do as she says and quit standin' so close, or her father'll have your pretty head on a spike," Tobho Mott said soberly before bumping past his apprentice and disappearing into the back room.

Once he was gone, Arya suddenly felt naked and frightened. "My father wouldn't do that," she said quickly, panicked.

Gendry swallowed, his eyes on the ground and his hands making fists at his side. All of the veins in the arms that she had earlier admired were prominent now. "You lied to me."

"I only wanted"—

"Milady," Gendry said, looking at her with hard eyes and a set jaw. She nearly shuddered at the title, his gaze making her stomach hurt. He looked so different from before, and amidst her fear, Arya suddenly and absurdly found herself thinking he looked terribly handsome, too. "If it please you, I think it would be best that you go. I'll deliver your blade to the castle tomorrow morning."

_It was ready, then,_ she thought, feeling stupid and awful. _It was ready this whole time and he didn't want to give it to me because he wanted me to keep coming. And now everything's ruined_.

"If it _please_ _you_," Arya suddenly fired back, feeling angry and rejected and miserable, "keep the blade and don't ever come near the castle, you _stupid bull_!"

Gendry's face fell, hurt. "Milady"—

"Shut _up_!" she said, hating that word, hating _him_. "I am _not_ a lady! And you are _not_ my friend!"

When Arya stomped out of the smithy, she was certain she would never see Gendry Waters again.


	3. Lions Are Not The Only Liars

A week had passed, and Arya had not returned to the smithy in King's Landing.

She knew she was being more sour than usual, and she knew it was ruining Renly and everyone else's moods, but she couldn't help it. She was frustrated and upset about losing her friend; she missed him calling her 'Miss Arya' and saying crude things in that lowborn accent that had somehow become so sweet to her. He had become the best part of her day, and without him, all she had left was court life and everything she despised about it.

Bran had tried several times to cheer her, asking her if she wanted to go riding or play cyvasse, but she refused him every time. Her father had tried to subtly steer her towards a gentler attitude, while her mother outright told her she was offending her soon-to-be good-family with her behaviour. Arya ignored them all. When next she wrote to Sansa, her letter was brief and stiff, a stark contrast to her previous two, which were full of colour and joy. Those letters were from a time when she had a friend; a _real_ friend. Someone who spoke to her and laughed with her because they _wanted_ to, not because they'd sworn fealty to her father.

Arya was hardly even dressed like a lady today, in spite of her presence at court. She sorely missed her afternoons dressed in her cuirass and trousers, but thinking on _that_ would only sadden her. She had waved away her handmaidens when they offered to dress her and do her hair in the Southron style, preferring instead a simple braid thrown over her shoulder and an unimpressive linen gown. There was to be no feast or tourney today, she figured. Who was there to please?

While Bran was in his lessons and princess Myrcella and all the other ladies sewing in their solar, Arya was in the courtyard, reading to Jory. He'd discovered her sullenly wandering the corridors and asked her if she would read to him.

"You have such a lovely voice," he'd said, as if he really were desperate to hear her read, and not just saving her from tedium. "If my sweet Lady Arya would be so kind as to read to an aging veteran? My eyes are going bad." She knew it was a lie, and that Jory was barely three-and-forty, and his eyesight sharp as ever; still, she'd smiled widely into his weathered, still-handsome face and followed him.

The book was dense, but Arya found she could appreciate it. It was a war journal, and the chapter Jory had asked her to read was describing some ancient battle, back when the Targaryens rode dragons into field. She stumbled over a few words, but he helped her with it each time. She found herself smiling and feeling content for the first time since Gendry found out she was highborn.

Around half an hour into her reading, a small clamour came from the other corner of the courtyard, where palace guards appeared to be struggling with someone at the door. Alarmed, Arya stood up, Jory following.

"Arya, milady"—he'd started, but then she'd seen a shock of black hair and, impulsively, dropped the book, picked up her skirts and ran to the guards.

Gendry was struggling fiercely, shouting, "I've got legitimate business with Lady Arya Stark! And a letter from my master, Tobho Mott. _Here_!" he unrolled a piece of parchment and was waving it at them, too quickly for them to read.

Arya came up between the soldiers abruptly, saying, "Sers, if I could have a word with the boy?"

They hesitated, but ultimately nodded and stepped back, releasing Gendry. He huffed, wiping hair from his eyes and looking thoroughly harassed as the guards shuffled off.

But then his eyes turned on her. Any irritation or discontent he had been expressing seemed to melt at once; his entire face softened to breathlessness, and his eyes travelled all over her—her gown, her braid, her face. She blushed when she realised that there was nothing subtle or decent about how he was looking at her; if spotted by the wrong people, they would be instantly taken for lovers. She thought she saw his gaze linger on her lips for a moment, but then, he was looking her in the eyes, the spell broken.

"I came to see you," he said, and the way he said those words made her chest and stomach ache for something. She wasn't quite sure what it was yet.

"So I see." She made sure to keep her face blank, determined not to break down over this boy; especially not here, where anyone could be watching.

Gender swallowed visibly. "I wanted to apologise, milady."

"If you truly mean to apologise, do _not_ call me milady, Gendry. I told you before that I wasn't a lady, and I meant it."

Gendry was more nervous than she'd ever seen him before. She realised suddenly how out of place he looked here, in the clean, white, royal courtyard, with his soot-stained clothes, unwashed hair, roughened lips and muddy boots. However, rather than pitying him, she felt wrong herself; she didn't belong in a linen dress. She belonged dressed like _him_, in _his_ world. A world with dirt and danger and drinking and cursing and _adventure_.

"Your sword," he said suddenly, reaching behind his back into a scabbard that was strapped there. The blade he pulled from it—coming out of with a terrific _slicing_ sound—was beautiful. Arya immediately reached her hands up without realising it, her fingers ghosting along the edge as Gendry held it in his hands.

"Perfect," she breathed, fingering the pommel, then the blade. Her fingers paused when she spied a rush of tiny script on its edge. She squinted in the blinding sunlight to be certain, but sure enough, carved shallowly into the steel were the words, "_To Miss Arya – from a Friend_."

She gnawed her lip. "Gendry," she started, her voice heavy with regret, but he raised his hand to quiet her.

"Mila—uh, _Arya_, if I may." He shifted, still looking nervous, but his eyes blazed with vigour. "I was a fool before. I can see why a lone girl riding into King's Landing would have had to lie about her position. I had thought..." he paused again, looking uncertain, but his confidence returned to him only a moment later. "I had thought you meant to trick me, to play a game with me. But I see now that that's not the case. I'm sorry. Please—take the sword. It's yours."

Arya's face split into a grin. Lifting the sword—_her_ sword—from him, she tested it in her hand, feeling the weight. "Perfect," she said again, her eyes rising to meet his sharp, blue ones. "Can I repay you in some way? Aside from your gold dragons, I mean."

Gendry did that thing where he looked all over her again, but when his eyes were back on _her_ eyes, he was smiling politely. "Your forgiveness is more than enough, Miss Arya. And the blade is free of charge."

"Gendry-!" she immediately protested, but he only chuckled. "No, no. I've been a right"— Arya looked expectantly when he paused, prepared to be angry at him if he was going to start censoring himself due to her 'delicate' highborn sensibilities. Gendry seemed to understand her threatening glare, because he finished, "I've been a right arse." She giggled and grinned at that.

When her laughter died and her eyes rested on him again—still so tall, and so tanned, and so much like Renly, but _better_, _better than Renly_—the ache in her chest and stomach was back. She gnawed her lip, feeling as if there were loads left to say that she was forgetting. One of them occurred to her. "Can I see you again?" she glanced around suddenly, realising she'd said that a little too loudly, and briefly caught sight of Jory, who was watching them from the place in the courtyard where she'd been reading to him.

Gendry looked around, too. When he spoke again, it was just a whisper. "Master Mott will be here at the Keep again tomorrow. You can come to the smithy and find me then."

Arya bit her lip and nodded. She gasped softly when she felt Gendry's hand subtly take hers, stroking her knuckles. "Until then_, Miss Arya_." And suddenly he was backing out of the courtyard, and then, gone.

When Arya returned to Jory, holding a new sword gifted to her by a strange lowborn boy, she was grateful he did not pester her with questions or shoot her any disapproving looks. When he spoke, he only said, "Certain you know what you're doing there, milady?"

Arya bit her lip and looked into his comforting, dark eyes. Absently fingering her sword's pommel, she shook her head softly. "No. Not at all."

_xxx_

That night at dinner, she was far too anxious for tomorrow to come to focus on anything anyone was saying. Joffrey and his pretty bride, Margaery, the sister of Renly's friend Loras, sat at the front of the table beside the king and queen. Arya and Renly were seated at their left, and Arya's father was at the right, in the honoured seat of the Hand. Arya was back in high spirits, much to everyone's bemusement and silent gratitude, and she was enjoying talking to Renly about Storm's End.

"There are woods all around, so I can take you riding and hunting," he was saying, his handsome face grinning beneath his beard. Arya was thinking of Gendry, of course, with such similar eyes and a similar smile, only Gendry was younger and shaven. She pushed the thought aside, thinking to herself, _tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. _

"Riding and hunting is not something the Lady of Storm's End should be seen doing," Cersei had said briskly, giving Arya a look that was somewhere between hostility and a queer fondness. "Do you know how to sew, little wolf? Or sing?"

"I tried to learn, Your Grace," Arya said with an easy shrug, refusing to let the beautiful queen intimidate her. "But I was never any good at it. No point in singing if I sound like a dying cow."

A chorus of mostly male laughter boomed from the table as Cersei scowled, looking heartily offended. Tyrion waved vaguely at Arya, his ugly little face twisting with a grin. "Oh, I _like_ her," he said.

As Arya glanced around, grinning brashly, she noticed King Robert (well into his cups at this hour) throwing her his usual dazed, longing looks, which she had gotten very good at ignoring. She also caught sight of Margaery Tyrell, oddly, who was flashing some small, secret smile. Her hazelnut eyes glowed with merriment and something else Arya could not place. She was queerly reminded of the way Gendry had looked at her in the courtyard that day.

The rest of the dinner had been much merrier after that. Tyrion engaged Arya in conversation about Winterfell and her unladylike habits, stories which incited even more laughter from her family, the courtiers, and the heavily drunken king. Arya found herself strangely liking the dwarf; she realised halfway through a story about beating Bran at wrestling—and she caught him reddening across the table at that—that he, too, had been born into a role he did not seem to fit, with gifts no one wanted to recognise. He was a wonderful conversationalist, and when he complimented and subtly flirted with her, Arya found herself responding positively and fluidly, falling into the rhythm of his well-practised game. She was not attracted to the dwarf's outward appearance at all—but, as she thought during their conversation, _if wits were what made a man beautiful, Tyrion would be the comeliest man in the Seven Kingdoms. _

Arya found Margaery looking at her in that queer fashion several other times during the meal. When she was struggling to bite a piece of salted pork from her silver fork, she saw Margaery softly giggling and staring at her, a sparkle in her pretty gaze. Arya wasn't sure if her young, fair, soon-to-be good-niece was mocking her or trying to win her over, but she could certainly say that the girl had successfully puzzled her.

"Lady Arya," the fat king slurred at one point, breaking through half-a-dozen other conversations, "You're to be married in only a week, you know."

Arya schooled her face into a polite smile that would have made Sansa proud. "Yes, Your Grace."

She noticed, in the corner of her eyes, that Bran and her mother were shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

"And are you prepared to make my brother happy?" he asked slowly, the question loaded with suggestion.

Arya did not let her smile falter. "Of course. He will be my lord husband." She swallowed before lying, "I love him."

Renly lifted a hand to touch her gently on the shoulder, and Arya saw Margaery Tyrell's gaze glow and sharpen on his hand. Her eyes were bright and clever, as if she knew something Arya did not. Knowing the reputation of House Tyrell, she probably did.

Robert did not smile, or laugh, or do anything at all when she said that. He only glared at Renly's hand, as if doing so would cut it off. Ned cleared his throat, leaning into the table and inclining his head towards Arya.

"Your Grace, I'm afraid I must ask my daughter to retire. It is late, and she should stay well rested before the wedding." Ned turned to smile softly at Arya, and she shot him a look which she hoped conveyed how terribly grateful she was to him.

For a moment, the king looked as if he might refuse him, as if he might actually demand that his best friend's barely-a-woman daughter remain at the table so he could torment her with his japes and his stares. But when he was silent for a beat, the queen leaned towards Ned, crossing in front of her husband and saying, "Yes, of course, Lord Stark. Shall we send someone to escort her?" she seemed quite eager to shoo Arya from the table.

"I shall do it," Catelyn said, smiling sweetly and gracefully rising from her seat. "I find I am tired as well. Sweetling?" she said, gesturing for Arya to rise too, and she did, near scrambling from her chair.

The two Stark women left the room with dignity, but as soon as her back was to the tiny collection of courtiers, Arya's face crumpled with disgust.

It was not until they were safely in Arya's chamber in the Tower of the Hand that she rounded on her mother.

"He's foul," she said, feeling so disgusted she could spit. "If I must endure another meal with that horrible man, I shall vomit on the silvers before it is even half done."

Catelyn did not reprimand her this time, or tell her to keep her voice down. She only smiled patiently at her, indulgently. "You are so very much like her."

"I don't _want_ to be like Lyanna Stark!" Arya shouted. "I don't want him to look at me and see her! Why can I not just be Arya? Why have I got to be Lyanna, and a lady, and now a king's good-sister? Why can I not just be _Arya_?"

Catelyn glided like a ghost across the floor, her skirts barely rustling as she did. She sat on Arya's bed, gesturing to the place beside her. Arya hesitantly joined her.

"Ser Jory told me about the boy in the courtyard," Catelyn began quietly, her eyes soft. Nonetheless, Arya paled, her tongue feeling fat and her stomach twisting the way it did when she knew she was in trouble. She said nothing, thinking that anything she could say would only make matters worse.

"Is he the cause of all this strange behaviour?"

Arya glared down at her lap. "He is a stupid lowborn boy," she said, her frustration about Gendry Waters bubbling into aggression. "Nothing more."

Catelyn chuckled knowingly, making Arya look up. Her mother's face was kind, a twinkle in her eye.

"I could not have birthed daughters that were less alike," she said affectionately, reaching up to stroke Arya's cheek. "Sansa, my honey-and-summer child. And you." Catelyn's eyes travelled all over her face, smiling lovingly. "My fierce earth-and-winter girl."

Still, Arya said nothing.

"You have grown to be so beautiful," Catelyn continued, tracing Arya's jaw with her thumb. "And so _strong_. Stronger than anyone I know. And I know you are no fool, either. So I am trusting you to be careful with this boy, do you understand?"

Arya's brow furrowed. "But...isn't it dishonourable for me to be speaking with a boy who is not my betrothed?"

Catelyn sighed. "I know better than to deny you your fancies, Arya, and in spite of what my children seem to think, I have not always been their old and dour mother."

Arya flushed. "You are not...dour."

Catelyn chuckled. "Oh, my sweet, lovely girl. Arya, I trust you to speak with this boy and befriend him without disgracing yourself. Am I wise to trust you in this way?"

Arya forced her most convincing smile. "Of course, mother," she lied.


	4. Stags Hunt As Well

Arya was not certain which time she should leave the castle to go into King's Landing. She thought that leaving at the break of dawn would be too early, and she found herself worrying that she may get there before Tobho Mott had left. When she dressed in the morning, she wore a red velvet riding habit—not wanting to risk alarming anyone by donning her breeches—and feverishly wound her hair into a Northern braid.

Her hands tapped against her thigh nervously as she paced the corridors, waiting for an opportunity to slip away. It was while she was pacing that she bumped into Margaery Tyrell, flanked by two handmaidens.

"Lady Arya!" Margaery greeted cheerfully. "Maids, leave us," she said at once, before Arya could even respond to her greeting.

Arya blinked in confusion as the maids shuffled away, lifting their skirts as they did.

"Lady Margaery?" Arya said hesitantly, watching the older girl carefully. Margaery's smile was large and bright when she responded.

"Your wedding is in six days, I believe."

"Yes, that's right."

"And are you prepared to be a wife?" Margaery asked her, cocking her head to the side and taking a step towards her. Arya swallowed.

"I...suppose."

"Your husband, how much do you know about him? Truly?" She had that Tyrell gleam in her eyes again.

Arya thought to lie, to say that she loved him like she had at dinner, but the look in Margaery's eyes told her lying would be futile. "Not much."

Margaery chuckled fondly. "You are as honest as your father. A rare quality at court." Her smile now was soft, secret. "But just a touch naive."

Arya's anger flared. "What d'you mean by that?" she demanded, all of her manners forgotten.

"Don't be offended, Lady Arya. I only meant that you are still so young."

"You aren't so much older than me," Arya pointed out. "Only eight-and-ten."

"Yes, that's true," Margaery conceded. "But I _am_ a wife. And marriage changes a girl, like it or not."

"What are you trying to say?" Arya asked her outright, uncomfortable with dancing around the sharp-eyed girl before her.

Margaery was smiling again, but there was a touch of pity in the gesture, now. "I am only worried that your husband will disappoint you, my lady."

Arya, naive as she was, still understood what this Tyrell viper was trying to do. Her mother had warned her that people who are threatened by her presence at court might try to sow discord between her and her betrothed; as if Arya was not doing enough of that on her own. "I think that's quite enough," Arya said coldly, turning to go.

"Oh, Lady Arya," Margaery called out to her. She paused and turned, her eyebrow cocked as she waited for an apology.

Margaery smiled. "If you _are_ disappointed by your husband...come see me. I can make the situation better for you."

Margaery's words were not suggestive—as Arya feared they might be the minute she waved her maids away, given her looks at dinner—but rather, calculated. She had meant them in a courtly-intrigue kind of way, Arya realised. She watched dumbly as the older girl turned and walked gracefully away, her yellow skirts swaying behind her as she did.

Arya waited patiently for another half hour before she could not bear it any longer. Slipping through some of the secret passages Renly had taught her—and trying to forget Margaery's strange, ominous words about him—it was ten minutes before Arya found herself in the royal stable. The groom, a straw-haired boy with a dirty face, greeted her by name and showed her to Renly's courser, having done so half a dozen times before.

The stable, the Keep, and the city whirred and blurred on either side of her as she rode. It was less comfortable riding in her habit than it was in her masculine clothes, and her footing was awkward given the skirt, but she was determined to reach her destination. She had had to leave Gendry's sword in her chamber—fearing the attention it could draw to her—and her hip felt naked without it, in spite of her never having worn it before. Nevertheless, in twenty minutes, she found herself on the Street of Steel, slowing the horse to a trot in front of Tobho Mott's Smithy.

After slipping from the saddle and tying up the horse as she had done so many times before now, she found herself pausing outside the door, hearing the clamour of hammer-on-steel inside and remembering her mother's words. She had never felt for anyone the things she felt for Gendry, and she could not yet place why. Did she love him, she wondered? She'd heard songs of princes and princesses loving paupers, yes, but those were just songs. Sansa would slap her bloody if she knew she was walking such a dangerous line; _And for what? A bastard boy?_ Sansa's voice whispered contemptuously in her mind.

Arya was suddenly angry. Sansa could not understand; _no one_ could understand. There were a thousand other girls who could play the part of a lady better than her, so why did it have to _be_ her? What was her family hoping would happen for her, anyhow? As much as her father had indulged her as a child—letting her keep Needle, paying for sword lessons, buying her new horses—did he really think she would become a lady the moment she was wed? Did they expect her to suddenly be _good_ at things like manners and intrigue? They always said they wanted her to be happy, but she was certain that there was nowhere in the world of finery and politics where that could happen for Arya Stark.

And with that thought, she opened the door.

He looked up the minute she did so. He didn't look as dirty today—his face was clean of ash and soot, and only his hands were blackened with the grease associated with his trade. Arya smiled, unbidden, wondering if he had taken a bath just for her. Gendry dropped his hammer to the floor, looking as if his hand had gone limp at the sight of her. He watched her approach him, his gaze hooking her in, like a hand gripping the fabric at her chest and pulling her forward.

She paused two feet in front of him, wringing her hands like a nervous child.

"I thought you might not come," he admitted with a thick swallow. Arya inhaled sharply, having forgotten in the day since she'd last seen him exactly how sweet his voice and that lovely accent of his was. Every time he pronounced a '_th'_ sound as '_f_', her chest fluttered happily.

"Of course I came. Don't be stupid," she said shyly, looking at the ground. In a moment his hand was under her chin, gently coaxing her face up towards him again. His eyes searched hers, and Arya suddenly did not feel so confused about what she felt for Gendry anymore. The warmth swimming in her blood told her the answer.

"When will you be married?" he asked quietly.

Arya chewed the inside of her lip. "In six days."

She heard Gendry's shaky inhale of breath. "Six days."

"Y-Yes."

Gendry licked his lips, his grip on her chin loosening. His eyes were flooding with something steep and bitter. "And will you leave, then? To Storm's End?"

Arya was still. "I don't yet know."

Gendry's hand fell away from her altogether. "Will you have his children? Be his lady?"

Arya felt tears prick the back of her eyes. "I suppose I must."

She was shocked when he slapped his hand noisily onto the work-table, making her jump. His chest was heaving, his jaw clenched. He was _angry_ with her.

"I-I'm sorry," she blurted, her eyes blurring with salty, stinging tears. "I'm _sorry_."

Gendry's face snapped back to her, his eyes softening. "_No_." His voice was hard, and he paused. It was gentler when he spoke again. "It isn't your fault this happened. I'm"— his breathing was ragged, as if he was trying not to cry out. "I'm bein' stupid again is all." He exhaled deeply, dropping his eyes to his feet and running his grease-blackened fingers through his hair. "If you're gonna go off and wed in six days..." when he looked at her again, his smile was miserable. "Then I am happy I am at least gettin' to see you now, Miss Arya."

She could not hold her tears back at the nickname. Coming apart with a choking sob, she would have collapsed if Gendry hadn't caught her. Arya usually _hated_ crying, but now, it could not be prevented. She felt utterly _helpless_, as if she'd been buried alive and was clawing at the ceiling of her grave.

"I _hate_ them all," she cried into Gendry's shoulder, her hands fisting in his apron. "The king and the queen, my parents, my sister, and that Margaery Tyrell. I don't _want_ any of this!"

"You don't _hate_ your family," Gendry murmured against her hair, one of his arms cradling her while the other stroked her head comfortingly.

"I hate _this_. I want to be a lowborn girl and stay here with _you_."

Gendry's arm tightened around her. "You shouldn't say things you don't mean, Arya."

Her head shot from his chest in an instant. "I _do_ mean that! I've never been happier than the hours I was here, when you thought I was a regular girl and you—_liked_ me."

"_Liked_ you?" Gendry repeated, his eyes burning with something Arya could not exactly place. "I haven't thought of nothing _but_ you since you came in here and demanded I make you a sword. Before I learned the truth, I had thought that—that I could"—

Arya waited, holding her breath.

Gendry's face was drawn with pain. "I've been savin' up money for a few years now. I'll be twenty in two moons, and I...I had been thinkin' on gettin' a wife. I had thought...I had been thinkin' it might be you. After I met you."

Arya blinked. "M-_Me_? But...you've known me for a week."

Gendry chuckled sadly. "Yeah, yeah, I know. And I've loved you just as long." He looked down, ashamed. "I really am stupid, like you say."

Arya gasped softly when he said '_loved'_. So he _loved_ her. Did _she_ love him?

"You _love_ me?" she asked quietly.

Gendry's face was pained again. "Yeah, reckon I do. Sort of like a bad joke, innit?"

She waited for him to explain, unable to speak herself.

He sighed. "I ain't never liked any of the girls I've met, not really. And then I meet one and I love her straightaway, and I can never, ever have her."

It _was_ like a bad joke, she realised, and Arya felt exactly the same. The only lord she'd ever liked besides her family was Renly and sometimes the Imp, but the Imp was a cad and a dwarf and Renly spent more time with Ser Loras than with her. Moreover, Arya didn't think she could ever really love a plump, perfumed little lord, no matter who he was. She'd had naive affections for Jory back when she was two-and-ten, but when she finally told Sansa about it, her sister had snapped at her and told her to never tell anyone that she felt something for the lowly knight ever again. Arya didn't understand why Sansa would call Jory _lowly_—he was such a dear friend of the family, always there to help her onto her horse, sneak her extra sweets after meals, and hold her when she cried. He had sounded an awful lot like the knights in songs that Sansa idolised, so Arya couldn't understand why his birth should have anything to do with his worth.

But it did. It _always_ did. Highborns and lowborns would always be separate, no matter what they wanted and who they loved. Arya's eyes welled with tears once more at the thought. Gendry noticed, taking her into his arms again, whispering rushed apologies for upsetting her.

"N-No," Arya choked. "It's not your fault. It's _mine_. I should've—been a good lady. Stayed in the Keep, spent time with Renly..."

Gendry pressed his lips to her forehead, and Arya sighed softly, her rambling instantly forgotten when she felt his rough mouth on her skin. Gendry must have noted the effect his kiss had on her, because he continued to kiss her on the forehead and down the side of her face. Arya's hands twisted into the fabric of his apron needfully, her eyes fluttering softly but never closing completely. _How can he do that?_ She wondered absently. _How can he make me forget that I'm unhappy?_ Being with Gendry made her feel like she used to as a child, running through the woods with Nymeria and Bran and Summer before their parents made them come to King's Landing and leave their direwolves behind. He made her feel like everything she wanted was still _right there_, that she just had to stretch her fingers a little further forward to touch it.

His lips came to rest at the bottom of her jaw, right at the place where it began to slope down to her chin. She held her breath, wanting and _needing_.

His lips had stopped moving. She could feel his breath, hot and thick, like sweet clouds warming her skin and beckoning her. He whispered her name into her skin and she shivered, feeling desire for him jump from her chest to her throat, making her tongue thick.

Without her asking them to, her hands ran up from their place on his apron, sliding off the rough fabric and onto the sweet skin of his collar. Her fingers splayed across the tanned flesh, loving how it felt, loving it because it was _his_.

"Arya," he said again, not as soft. His heat-roughened lips brushed her skin when he did that, and she gave a tiny gasp. She wanted him to _kiss_ her. More than she had ever wanted anything in the world, she _wanted him to kiss her._

Arya let her hands travel up from his collar to his neck, slowly. Then her fingers came up on either side of his face, ghosting along the hard lines of his jaw and cheeks while he kept his mouth at the spot where her jaw, ear, and neck met. Now it was his turn to shiver, and he whispered here name again, like a plea this time, while she stroked him, wishing she could kiss him in all of the places she touched.

Suddenly, his head ripped from her neck and he grabbed her by her wrists, pulling her hands from him. Arya thought dimly that he could've been killed for handling her in this way if her father or the king had caught her; so why, she wondered, did she like it?

"You can't," he rasped. The pupils of his eyes had swallowed nearly all of the blue in them, making them appear almost black. "_I_ can't."

Arya became frustrated at once. "Why not?" she demanded, squirming in his grip, trying to get her hands free.

Gendry did not chuckle, or half-smile, or become angry or annoyed. He did not do anything she had come to expect from him. He only stared at her through his black, heavy-lidded eyes. "Arya, we _can't_," he said slowly.

"Yes we _can_!" she felt like _screaming_. It wasn't fair. He loved her, and she may very well have loved him, too.

"_Fuck_sake," Gendry growled, licking his lips between heavy breaths. Arya shivered at the curse, and though she didn't know why, she found she liked it an awful lot when Gendry used foul language.

"Just kiss me," Arya whispered, shaking with desire. She hadn't even thought before she said it. Thinking didn't seem necessary now. "Just...just once."

For the briefest moment, he looked like he would refuse her. Like he would ask her to leave the forge and never come back, because it was the wiser thing for the both of them.

But then he dropped her wrists and took her by the waist, crushing their chests together and making her gasp. His fingers bit into the small of her back, and before she could mutter his name, he was _kissing_ her, feverish and wild and wanting. Arya made a small noise in her throat, one she hadn't consciously summoned, and she could've sworn she felt him growl. His lips were as rough as they'd been against her skin, and her fingers raked through his hair, loving the coarseness of it.

Arya was beginning to feel a warm kind of pressure winding in her belly, reminding her of the way a slingshot felt in her hand before she released it. The more his kiss roughened her lips, stinging and soothing them all at once, and the more his hands gripped her back, the more she felt that it wasn't _enough_. His apron scratched at her exposed neckline and all she could think was that she wanted it off—her dress, his apron, everything. She wanted to stroke his bare chest, to know what his hands felt like gripping her back when there was no dress between them.

Without warning, he broke from her lips, but only to dive back to his place below her ear, feverishly dropping kisses along the column of her neck. Arya could only tilt her head up, panting and staring at the wooden beams of the ceiling, her fingers fisting desperately in his shaggy hair.

"I love you," she gasped, so quiet she did not even think he could have heard her. "I love you."

_xxx_

When she returned for dinner, the only sign of Gendry anywhere was in the redness of her swollen lips; and no one seemed to notice that.

Renly was being especially social, touching her on the arm and leaning in like a conspirator to murmur japes in her ear, nearly making her choke on her sweetmeats. Arya was trying not to look _too_ happy, worried that her mother would recognise her as a girl come from her lover only two hours before.

_Lover—_it was strange to think of him that way, but not because it did not suit him; rather, it was as if he had been her lover all along, and she was the last to know it. When she returned to the Keep—slipping in through the stables and sneaking along secret corridors like a thief—she had unlaced her riding habit and slid from it at once. It was ruined now, covered in blackened stains from his hands—she'd smiled glowingly at the memory—so Arya had mashed it up clumsily with her hands and shoved it into the bottom of her trunk, a little ruined ball of red velvet. Next she'd splashed water on her face, combed and braided her hair, and tried to rid the pleasured flush from her cheeks by thinking of things like the dead birds and the fat king's belly and the queen's ugly scowl.

So far, she was certain she had fooled them all. Everyone seemed to be happy that evening; Bran and Myrcella were having a conversation about books they'd read with their tutors, and Arya dimly thought that the pair of them would make a nice, studious couple, if the princess had not already been promised to Robb. Tyrion and the Kingslayer were japing crudely but in good nature while the queen looked on fondly. Arya noticed that the queen never laughed at Tyrion's japes, only her twin's, but did not think on it long. It was rare enough for Cersei to be in good spirits as it was. The king and Arya's father were reminiscing together about some campaign in Dorne, and Arya felt truly content in the Red Keep for the first time since arriving.

The meal dragged on for several hours, and Arya was allowed to stay and converse with the older lords and ladies after Bran, Myrcella and Tommen were sent away. It would have been ridiculous, after all, for her mother to have sent the future Lady of Storm's End to her room because it was 'bedtime'.

Arya found herself thoroughly enjoying the japes of Tyrion, Lord Baelish and even the Kingslayer. Joffrey was the only one who was indifferent to their joviality, preferring to pick at the bones on his plate and ignore his wife.

When the servants were finally called to take the food away, Arya's parents bowed and curtsied to the king before leaving together, flashing her smiles and whispering 'goodnight' as they did. After helping her from her seat, Renly had his elbow cocked, offering his arm to her, but the king interrupted.

"I'll take the girl to 'er room," Robert said in his thunderous voice, and Arya had to suppress a shudder at the sound of him and the stink of wine that always came with it. She turned, her eyes huge and shocked, feeling like a rabbit again, like she had when she met the royal family for the first time in Winterfell.

She looked to Renly for help, but he only bowed his head and backed away, withdrawing his arm. Arya felt afraid all of a sudden. The drunken king offered his arm instead, and she took it nervously, nearly wincing when she realised he smelled worse up close.

Arya was about to throw another desperate look around at the remaining courtiers, but the king was already leading her away, walking her in the direction of the Tower of the Hand.

"How're you likin' my brother?" he asked her, and when Arya turned politely to look at him, she thought that his crown looked nearly comical, crooked as it was on his head that was thinning of hair.

"Well, Your Grace," Arya answered in a murmur. "He is kind to me, and very funny."

"I told you before; I'm no _Grace_. Not to you, anyhow. I'm Robert."

Arya swallowed subtly. "I...Robert, then."

He paused abruptly, and Arya made a tiny noise of surprise, her body jerking backwards as he did, flying like a rag doll in the arm of a child. He released her, turning to look at her.

"When I see you," he muttered, licking his lips, "when I _hear_ you, it is like she never left."

_He means Lyanna. _Arya squirmed under his eyes. "I...do not know what you speak of."

"Sometimes I think the gods are giving me another chance," he rasped, his eyes glassy with alcohol. "A new opportunity, to love her better than I did before."

"You started a war for her," Arya said uncomfortably, not even bothering to feign ignorance anymore. "No one can doubt that you loved her."

"But I lost her," Robert continued, seeing her and not seeing her at all. "She loved that foul Targaryen instead."

Arya stiffened. "But she was kidnapped," Arya said slowly. "She was taken...against her will."

Robert laughed. It was a dark, pitying sound. Pity for whom, Arya was not sure. "Stupid girl," Robert growled, grabbing at her arm and yanking her to him. His face was much too close. "I loved her more'n I loved anything. My honour, my country, my friends, and myself. I loved her as much as she loved the dragonborn prick. And I did what I needed to to get 'er back."

It took her a minute to figure out what he was saying, but when she did, Arya's stomach rolled with sickness. She felt like she might cry. "But my uncle Brandon," she said in a cracked voice. "My grandfather and—and those babies, the Targaryen babies"— she was rambling now, and she knew it. But she could not stop. It was as if this foul, drunk king had gripped her world by its base and turned it on its head, crushing everything she had naively believed to be true. The rebellion—_Robert's Rebellion_, the great victory against the Targaryens—it had all been fought for a lie. Children slaughtered. All for a proud young man's selfish love and brutal jealousies.

"I regret what I did," he said, his breath tickling Arya's nose, and she wrinkled it from the smell. "But regrets are done with now. Now I can try again and make it better. Now I have _you_."

When he leaned in to try and kiss her, Arya let out a little cry of protest, but she never felt his lips on hers. Instead, a woman's voice called out, _'Enough!' _and suddenly the king had let go of her, backing away.

Arya turned, her eyes full of tears, to see the queen standing in the hallway, her shroud drawn about her shoulders. She approached them with a livid face, but she was not looking at Arya. Her fury was only for her husband.

"My love, the hour is late," Cersei said tightly, her beautiful green-gold eyes brimming with rage and her mouth a thin line. "Jaime can escort Lady Stark to her chamber."

Arya had not even noticed the queen's handsome twin, standing a few paces behind her and gleaming in his white-gold armour. The Kingslayer stepped forward, coming up beside Arya and pressing his hand to her back, urging her ahead. Arya followed him without argument and without turning to look behind her.

It was not until they had rounded into the next corridor that Arya heard Cersei shouting at the king. She made out a few insults, but could not tell what else was being said. Without looking at him, she said to the Lannister beside her, "She is angry with me."

"Not precisely," he answered, his voice free of care. "But you must be done away with, naturally."

Arya was still too shaken to round on the Kingslayer and demand to know what he meant. Instead she murmured, "The queen is sending me away."

"Yes," Jaime answered with a harassed sigh. "For your good and for hers. You do not want to stay here and be mooned after by a stinking old man anyhow, do you?"

Arya was about to ask how a member of the Kingsguard could speak about his king in such a way, but thought against it. Cersei hated the king, and he was Cersei's twin. There was no need to ask. "Do you know where she will send me?"

"Storm's End I suppose, along with Lord Renly. It is his land, after all. I'm certain a little wildling queen like yourself would enjoy it there. Woods and wolves and all that."

They had reached her chamber. Arya finally turned to look at him, staring into his beautiful, golden face. She swallowed, feeling her tears still drying on her cheeks.

"Did you know the truth? About the rebellion?"

Jaime Lannister's brow was furrowed. Puzzled. "What truth?"

Arya's throat went dry instantly. "Nothing. I'm...thank you, Ser Jaime."

He gave her a half-smile that was nothing like Gendry's; his was coy, calculated. "You're such a rare, wild thing, Lady Stark. I sincerely hope that marriage and ladyship does not ruin you."

When he turned and walked down the hall, his armour scraping and his white cloak swinging, Arya rushed into her room, collapsing against the door. Letting her sobs come freely and noisily as she slid slowly to the ground, she thought of the king's glassy eyes, and with a lurch of stomach, realised that they were the exact same as Gendry's.


	5. The End, As it Were

The days were slipping away from her.

The sun had risen and fallen three times since she asked Gendry to kiss her in the forge, and every day since she'd snuck away from the Keep to see him again. Renly had been helping her—given that she was being more closely-watched by Cersei's men after the incident with the king—and he had been behaving secretively as well. Mayhaps the king and queen thought it was unfit that he was always gambling with Ser Loras instead of spending time with his betrothed? Arya found she wasn't very concerned with what his reasons were—he was helping her, and that was all she cared to know. They would soon be shipped away to Storm's End together, where she would have nothing to do but birth babies and grow old in a stuffy castle. But Arya tried not to think about that.

Every day, just before noon, Arya came to the forge, tied up Renly's horse, and rushed inside to Gendry's waiting arms. They did not argue or bother with the pretence of caring about each other's social positions anymore; the minute she came through the door, he would be standing there, anticipating her. Then he would stride over to her, take her in his arms, and kiss her dizzy.

Arya always found herself becoming more aroused than she anticipated she would be, and she knew he desired her, too, but he refused to take her into his bed. She knew that she should be happy for his restraint—given the importance of her maidenhead in her upcoming marriage, especially considering how everyone at court already thought her to be a savage—but she couldn't find it in herself to appreciate it. She had never wanted any man the way she wanted Gendry. She found herself only becoming frustrated when he pulled away from her and smoothed her hair.

"No," he'd say gently, his eyes saying something entirely opposite. "We really can't."

The closest she'd ever come to breaking him was on the fourth day she came to him, two days before her wedding date. This time was more desperate; because even though both of them wanted to ignore it and pretend nothing was amiss, they were both terribly aware of her impending wedding date, and their inevitable separation from each other. She could feel it in the way his fingers dug into her back possessively, and the way his kiss was half-bite, and the way he moved her against a wall and held her there with his solid body.

She'd been especially pressing, clawing at him and murmuring sexy little things she shouldn't have, and with a growl of irritation he'd flipped her, forcing her breasts against the scratchy brick wall. Then he'd been lifting her skirts and shoving his large, rough hand inside her smallclothes and she'd lost herself entirely, crying and whimpering while he rubbed her impatiently, the heel of his palm agitating her sensitive course hairs. She clawed at the wall and shuddered when she came many minutes later, sweat collecting at her hairline and her voice completely lost in exhaustion in bliss. He'd turned her around again, kissing her gently and apologising hurriedly for his ungallantness, but she shoved him away, irritated that he would _apologise_ for that. The way he'd made her felt—the way he made her _feel_—she figured it was the way knights and husbands should make their wives feel. Wasn't that how Sansa always talked about it? _Renly_ certainly never made Arya feel this way; so why was _he_ her betrothed and not Gendry?

She tried not to dwell on it. So she'd let him kiss her arguments away, let him carry her to the cot where he sucked her from his fingers and kissed her yet again. He treated her so tenderly, like he loved every last bit of her; and as much as Arya sought from him, she knew it would never be enough. She could not be satisfied until he was hers, whole and entire.

"Please," she whispered, trying to pull his body atop hers. "I'm yours."

But he'd only licked his lips, his eyes flickering to hers and fixing her with a look that was desirous and tortured in equal measure.

"No," he said, his voice flat. "You're not."

_xxx_

Arya had been expecting the queen's invitation to sup privately in her rooms for days now. After all, Cersei could hardly express her desire for Arya's absence simply by having her twin tell her; that would be improper and unofficial. So when Lancel Lannister arrived in the Stark solar, where Arya had been reading with her parents, she was unsurprised. Ignoring her mother's pointed look, Arya followed him.

Lancel Lannister was a thin, comely thing. He reminded Arya vaguely of Loras Tyrell, her husband's friend, what with his tall, wiry form and long hair. Loras Tyrell was more muscle than bone, however, unlike this Lannister pageboy.

The queen's rooms were across the Keep. Arya could not help but raise her eyebrows when she finally came inside; everything was crimson velvet and gold lace, and portraits of Lannister noblemen and women decorated the walls. Lancel bowed and scurried away, and Arya found herself moving towards one portrait in particular, a picture of a golden-haired woman with an unspeakably beautiful face. The woman's eyes were a soft, sage green, not the hard emerald that all of the other portrait faces had. Her smile was subtle, barely there, but sure enough, a small dimple had been painted into her cheek, confirming it. Arya looked all around the picture and even the frame, searching for a name.

"That's my mother."

Arya jumped at the sound of Cersei's voice, spinning to find the queen standing before her, wearing an elegant Myrish dressing robe.

Arya swallowed. "She's beautiful."

"Yes," Cersei agreed, her mysterious little smile in place. "She was."

"Your Grace, I'm"—Arya had been about to ask why she was called to the queen's room, but instead swallowed the question mid-sentence. You weren't supposed to ask kings and queens questions, were you? At least, not so bluntly and rudely. You had to dance around it for a while. At least, that's how her parents and Lord Baelish and Varys and all of the rest of them did it.

"You want to know why I've summoned you here." Cersei gestured to a small table by the window, where two eating places had been arranged. "And I will tell you."

Arya curtsied—later wondering if that was even what she was supposed to do—and followed the queen to the table. Sitting, she glanced around and saw that the chamber was completely devoid of servants. Arya thought that odd; queens were supposed to be waited on constantly. At least, that's what she had believed.

As Cersei daintily tasted her soup, Arya bit her lip in anxiety. "Your brother was very kind to me," she blurted out. "The...the other night."

Cersei regarded Arya with a look of vague surprise. "Oh? Which brother? They both are a bit fond of you."

Arya had not thought of it before, but she supposed the queen might be right. She knew Tyrion liked her, at least; but Jaime was a bit of a mystery, saying everything with a cocked eyebrow and a half-smile, as if nothing was ever serious for him. Jaime, however, had been the one she was referring to.

"Ser Jaime, Your Grace. The night he returned me to my rooms."

"Ah. Yes." Arya thought that Cersei looked more beautiful than ever before. While she usually wore her hair in ridiculous Southron braids or stuffed it into hairnets, now it was loose and long, two waterfalls of shimmering gold thrown over each shoulder. She even looked younger, now, the candlelight casting flattering light on her comely face. "Jaime has told me you remind him of me."

Arya frowned, puzzled. There was _nothing_ she could see that she and the queen had in common; where Arya was savage and plain, the queen was clever and ladylike and one of the comeliest women at court.

Cersei chuckled. "When I was a child, I would don Jaime's little sets of training armour and go to his sword lessons in his place. We looked so much alike that even his teacher could not tell us apart." Cersei paused, her smile fading. "I never wanted to be a woman. I always wanted what my brother had; freedom. Opportunity. A _man's_ life. I never wanted gowns and marriage. I wanted a sword in my hand."

Arya squirmed in her seat, suddenly struck with the idea of ending up exactly like Cersei. Everything the queen had described was _Arya_. Would what happened to Cersei happen to her? In twenty years, would she truly find herself sitting in her throne at Storm's End, hating Renly liked Cersei hated the king? Would she become as bitter and jealous as the queen was, as suspicious and resentful? Was Cersei _warning_ her?

"I've heard about how you ride into King's Landing," Cersei said with a wry little smile. "Find any adventure there, sweetling?"

Arya did not even try to force down her smile. Something about the queen seemed oddly comforting now. "Loads," she answered.

Cersei chuckled again. Her smile was full of fondness. "You _are_ different, aren't you? A fierce little wildling in a lady's gown."

Arya took the queen's assessment as a compliment. "I'm not a lady, Your Grace."

Cersei sighed. "Perhaps not. But they will never stop trying to make you one." She broke off to take a sip of her wine, fixing her eyes on the stem of her goblet afterwards. "I am sorry for the way my husband treats you."

Arya had been waiting for this to come. "The king is a good and gallant man," she said, regurgitating what Septa Mordane had taught she and Sansa to say just before the king and queen came to Winterfell.

Cersei looked her over with something like disappointment in her face. "You shall have to return to Storm's End with your husband," she said. "You will rule the land at his side."

Arya swallowed thickly. Somehow it was so much worse hearing those words from the queen herself. "Because of the king," she said quietly.

Cersei nodded sombrely.

Arya felt her brow pinch with anxiety. "Do you hate me, Your Grace?"

Cersei cocked her head and looked Arya over. "No. I only resented you for your freedom, however minute it has been. My father did not humour my desires the way yours has."

Arya felt pity for the beautiful queen seizing her. She had always thought that Cersei was a bit unjustified in her bitterness, that she should be happy for her station in life. Cersei had always struck Arya as the type of woman who enjoyed power; queenship seemed like exactly the sort of thing that would please her. She had never even considered the idea that the graceful gold-haired woman would feel just as trapped as Arya did, maybe more.

Arya licked her lips. "Your Grace, how...how do you bear it?" she asked softly.

Cersei's gaze fell back to her meal, which neither of them had really touched. "My sweet, there are two places where happiness can be found. In yourself, and in others. Some are blessed to find both. Others must only seek one." The queen's bright, grass-green gaze snatched her again. "The things I desired for myself are gone. I shall never have what is in my heart. I will never be a knight or a king. But that is the happiness I sought from _myself_."

"And what about the other kind?"

Cersei's eyes softened considerably. "Love. It is the only other happiness that there is."

Arya swallowed, thinking of only one face. "Do you love someone, Your Grace?" She completely ignored the king in this question. It was clear that Cersei bore no love of any kind for her husband.

Cersei nodded her golden head. "Yes. I do. I have since I was a girl."

"What happened?"

The queen's face pinched with grief. "The world would not let me love him how I wished."

He was lowborn, Arya assumed. Just like her blue-eyed blacksmith. "What did you do?"

"I will always love him. In the only ways left in which I still can." She gave Arya a false smile. "Wine, Lady Stark?"

_xxx_

Gendry had his forehead pressed to hers. He gripped her hands tightly, his breathing rough.

"Tomorrow is..."

"Yes."

Gendry leaned away from her just enough so that he could look her in the eye. "I will never be able to see you again."

"No!" Arya said at once. "You could come to Storm's End, and"—

"Kiss the lord's wife behind his back?" Gendry said. He sounded mocking. Arya _hated_ being mocked. "I'd lose my head."

Arya shook her head, snatching her hands away. It was too soon for things to be ending. Too soon, _much too soon_. "You're a coward," she said, her mind flying away from reason the way it always did around him. "A _coward_."

"They'd kill me if they caught me! And I ain't even sure what they'd do to you. Make you become a silent sister, if they were kind. Kill you beside me if not. It'd be treason, Arya. We'd be _traitors_."

"But I want you," she said. That was important. It was the _only_ thing that was important.

Gendry swallowed. His eyes held everything. "I want _you_."

"Then why?" she demanded. The question was loaded with absolutely everything that they were, everything they could be.

Gendry's face was grieved, his voice soft. "Because it's not how it's supposed to happen."

Arya was silent, waiting.

"You were born a lady for a reason. I believe that. If I could follow you to Storm's End, I would. But I can't, because they'd kill us both for it. It wasn't meant to _happen_, Arya."

She looked at the ground because she couldn't look at him. Arya shook her head slowly, murmuring _no_.

"But I _love_ you," he said abruptly. She did not look up to see his face. "I love you forever, all right? No matter who you're married to. _Arya_, can you just—"

He brought his hands around her face, but she tried to struggle away. She was beating madly at his chest, screaming the foulest insults she could think of.

"Stop it! Can't you be good to me now? _Now_, when you're going to be someone else's tomorrow?"

"I won't be good to a _coward_," she spat, finally managing to pry his hands from her face. "And my greatest shame was ever loving one."

She fled the smithy at once, feeling tears filling her eyes as he shouted her name to her back, his voice growing hoarser and hoarser.

_xxx_

Arya was awoken the next day by her giggling handmaidens and her lady mother. Catelyn was smiling brightly as she bathed Arya, dousing her in flowery perfumes afterwards. Arya's wedding gown was all white silk and tight bodice and Myrish lace—the sort of thing she despised. But she donned it without argument and stood there in silence while her mother laced her into it. Because _this_ was how it was supposed to happen. In a gown worth more than Arya herself, at the Sept of Baelor, to the king's brother. _This_ was how it happened for highborn girls.

By the time her dress had been tied, her hair braided and her face washed, she hardly resembled herself. Staring into the mirror, Arya thought that she must have been the most tired-looking bride that ever was, what with her white face and the faint bags beneath her eyes, pink from weeping.

"Beautiful," her mother murmured to her as she took her by the arm. Arya wondered if she was lying to make her feel better, or if she had decided, along with everyone else, to suddenly start thinking of her as a pretty girl instead of who she truly was.

The small feast before the wedding was noisome. She sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Renly, but ignored his attempts at making japes and conversation. _We'll be married in an hour, _she'd thought. _He'll have forever to try and speak to me._

At the wedding itself, she could not hear the dull drawling of the High Septon. She could not make herself listen as Renly said all of his vows. She didn't have to listen anyway; the women made no vows. They didn't need to. They were cattle in this ritual, bought without consent. And the world had managed to make Arya into a cow, too.

Her eyes wandered around the Sept. It was glittering gold as far as the eye could see, nothing but wealth and astounding beauty. Arya cocked her head as she examined the towering statue of the Father behind Renly. The Mother's statue, its mate, stood behind Arya. The Father had a sort of dour look about him; Arya wondered if that was what the sculptor had intended. His beard obscured most of his long face, but his eyes were bright and obvious, painted blue over the smooth marble. Arya thought that he looked a bit like her own father, only much more severe. She was sure Ned was smiling now, not glaring down at she and Renly like _this_ Father was. She was sure they were all smiling, her parents, Bran, Jory. Arya turned to look out into the crowd, blatantly ignoring Renly and caring nothing of how it must have made her look.

She was right; they were all beaming up at her, the small sea of two-hundred faces, rippling with colour and murmurs. Her mother was even wiping her eyes, as if she thought this was a _happy_ moment. As if she thought Arya would be _pleased_ about this.

Bran's smile was nervous, but there nonetheless. It widened when she looked at him. Jory's smile was smaller, more private, more knowing. She wondered what he could be thinking now. He was the one who taught her to ride horses and fire a bow. Did he think this was a happy day, too?

Arya looked past her family to where the royals sat. The king was not smiling, but he was not grimacing, either. She realised it was the first time she had ever seen him without a wine goblet in his hand.

Myrcella and Tommen were grinning like the young fools they were. Arya eyed Myrcella, all golden-haired and lovely and sweet, and thought, _you'll be next. Soon they'll take you from your home and give you to a stranger, too. Just you see. You may not be smiling then._

Joffrey looked remarkably bored, and at his side Margaery sat, back erect and smile perfectly in place. Arya had to look away from her; she was so very _sick_ of smiles.

So she looked to the queen. Cersei's face held no trace of a grin; her green gaze was hard, as if she was seeing all of it from the eyes of Arya herself. As if she was living her own wedding over again in her mind, the wedding that gave her over to years and years of bitterness and misery.

Arya finally looked at Renly. In his face she saw nothing but Gendry, nothing but the blacksmith she loved so fiercely, the one hammering away at his shop only a few miles from where she stood. Renly's smile was shy and tentative, but Arya could see a genuine happiness there, however small, as he leaned in to remove the fastenings of her cloak. She nearly gasped, nearly reached forward to take it back, but it was gone. It was gone and Arya Stark was dead.

That moment felt inanely queer to her. She was not a Stark, but until Renly finished removing his own cloak and threw it onto her back, she was not a Baratheon, either. For that small space of time, she was only Arya. She had no surname; she was Arya, just _Arya_.

_Just Miss Arya_.

Renly's cloak was finer than hers, trimmed with soft black fur. She thought that the bright yellow on her back would clash horribly with her harsh Northern colouring; Septa Mordane had always told her she looked far better in 'cold colours'. And yellow was about as far from _cold_ colours as you could get.

She did not speak when the ceremony finished. She made no move to acknowledge the applause, or the cries of congratulations. Renly hooked his arm in hers and led her out of the Sept, nodding and grinning at the onlookers as they walked, a mockery of triumph, through the doors. Behind her, the bells of the Sept of Baelor chimed tauntingly.

When they led her down Visenya's Hill, with throngs of Smallfolk on either side of her, she was silent. She did not smile. She accepted the flowers that the children thrust at her, and nodded in wordless gratitude. Renly's arm around hers made her feel less like a princess on her wedding day, like Sansa had always described, a dream-struck girl in bed, and more like a convicted traitor being led to the gallows. Arya wondered what Sansa was doing now. She could not come to the wedding, nor Arya to hers, because they were too close together in time; Sansa had been married two days before. Arya wondered dimly if Sansa had enjoyed her wedding, her husband. She wondered if she had smiled her lovely Tully smile when Ned Dayne put his cloak around her shoulders. She wondered if Sansa beamed when they called her 'Lady Dayne of Starfall' for the first time.

It was not until they were nearly to the bottom of the hill that she heard it. _Arya. _Her name. _Arya. _Not _Lady Baratheon_, like everyone else was shouting. It was enough to make her lift her head and look around.

It was him. Of _course_ it was him. Of _course_ the idiot had come to witness her greatest shame, her greatest defeat. Of _course_ he had come to say goodbye.

He was fighting his way between two large men, holding his hand out before him. Arya could not speak, or smile, or stop; she could only meet his eyes—_blue and big and blue and big_—and let him slip something into her hand. She did not look at it as Renly led her past him.

It was not until they had reached the Keep and Renly had broken away from her to greet guests at their marriage feast that she opened her hand to find a tiny, slightly misshapen pin with the head of a snarling direwolf on it. She flipped it, discovering tiny script on it, like the kind he had carved into the blade of her sword.

_To My Love. _


	6. Convenience

Arya sat in her seat and stared at her food while the hall roared around her. The king was already drunk, the queen sitting at his side with an expression of utter disgust, and Renly was speaking to everyone, all grinning and boasting of his new bride.

Arya kept noticing him call for the wineskin. She watched as Renly emptied his goblet three times, his face becoming redder with each cup he finished. When they were called to dance, he all but stumbled from his chair to take her hand and lead her away from the table.

Arya's face was empty of expression as she stared into his stupidly grinning face. "My love," she said, her tongue fat with the lie, "have you had enough wine?"

He laughed at that as he spun her around. Arya was dizzy when he answered.

"It's a celebration," he said. "I'm celebrating my marriage to my pretty wife."

Something had flickered in his smile then, but Arya said nothing. When the time came for him to pass her off to a different partner, she was handed away from lord-to-lord, forcing herself to smile when they complimented her and told japes. She danced with Loras Tyrell at one point, who had been oddly silent and stone-faced. Given his friendship with her husband, she'd assumed he would be happiest of all about Renly's marriage. Unless he just didn't like her.

Soon she found herself in the arms of Jaime Lannister. He handled her with the sort of grace and fluidity of a trained dancer, something she would have never expected from a knight. When she told him so, he chuckled.

"You know, Lady Stark, you judge things a bit too quickly."

She bristled at that. "I do _not_."

"Oh, yes, you do. You like to complain about being judged as a woman, but you've just judged me as a knight."

Arya frowned as he spun her past Lord Baelish and Margaery Tyrell. "I was only surprised. I meant it as a compliment."

"Well, you surprise me, too. And I mean _that_ as a compliment."

Arya was remembering Cersei's words to her the night they dined in private. "The queen said I remind you of her. From when she was little."

He laughed again. He had such perfect teeth; so white and straight. "That you do. She was a tiny wildling like yourself, chasing after swords and horses and armour. She despised being ladylike."

Arya bit the inside of her lip as she stared into the Kingslayer's beautiful face. He was less frightening than his twin; he had always given her the impression that he cared absolutely nothing for politics, like everything was just some great jape that he was thoroughly enjoying. It was nice, given that anyone else at court, apart from her family, was always hungry for her secrets. Varys and Lord Baelish had struck up conversations with her in the corridors sometimes, but she'd always made excuses and scurried away. Her father said she was not to speak to them.

"You said before that you did not want marriage to ruin me," Arya said, her voice shaky when she realised, not for the first time during the celebration, that she _was_ married now. "What did you mean?"

"Well, I think you already know." Jaime spun her gracefully. "Getting shipped off to a castle, birthing babies. It tends to put a rather final end to youth. And youth looks very good on you."

Somehow, Jaime seemed to turn everything into a flirtatious jibe. Maybe that was the only way he knew how to speak. "I had no choice in the matter."

"Oh, there is _always_ a choice," he drawled, smiling wryly. "Whether it means going to the Neck and living as a spearwife or fleeing to the East on a ship. You could have run away at any time, if you wanted to badly enough."

"I couldn't just _leave_," Arya argued. "My family"—

"Yes, of course. Your _family_. You had to stay and be a lady because of your family. Now, is this the same family that sold you to Renly Baratheon? Or have you got another one I wasn't aware of?"

Arya scowled. She hated being made a fool of more than anything else in the world. "I'll not be mocked by the _Kingslayer_."

Jaime clucked his tongue like Septa Mordane. His green eyes were dancing. "Now, now, Lady Stark. What did I say before about _judging_?"

She was grateful when she was handed off to Jory.

She danced with Bran and Lancel Lannister and more lords whose names she did not care to remember before she heard it. _The horns_.

Everyone dancing had broken apart and the man who'd been her partner for the last minute, some lesser Tyrell, backed away from her. They were _all_ looking at her now. Her and Renly.

"_Time for the bedding!"_ The king called much too happily, and she suddenly got that prey-like feeling again, panic crawling up her spine. No, not yet. The feast could not be over yet. It couldn't be. She wasn't _ready_ yet.

She could hear them, the men coming towards her. Some of them roared with cruel laughter. They were going to strip her now, in front of everyone. In front of her father and Loras Tyrell and Tyrion and the greedy-eyed king.

Feeling her eyes blur with shameful tears, suddenly Jaime was at her side again. She recognised him from the gleam of his white-gold armour which shined in the corner of her eye. Taking her by the arm, he led her a bit closer to the door and quickly and deftly tore her dress from her. She did not know whether to be shocked or grateful.

He left her in her smallclothes and took her in his arms, carrying her out of the hall of leering eyes.

Arya blinked away her tears and leant her head against his cold metal breastplate. "Thank you," she whispered.

"It's a stupid tradition, really. No point in it. Only thought of as a way to entertain all the drunk lechers who wish they could have the bride for themselves."

Arya sniffed. "What if he doesn't like me? What if I get pregnant?" she felt suddenly hysterical, knowing that in a few minutes she would be losing her maidenhead. And then it would be done. The marriage could not be annulled or set aside. She would be bound to Renly Baratheon forever.

"He _will_ like you. And if he gets a child off you on your wedding night, you must be from terribly fertile stock. Of course, the existence of you and your four siblings have already made that clear, I think."

Arya had never, ever thought that Jaime Lannister could be comforting. But he _was_. He was more comforting to her now than her father or even Jory could be. Because he was telling her the _truth_.

"What if I don't like _him_."

She looked up at the handsome knight, fear taking her heart. "What if I come to hate him? What if I end up just like the queen?"

Jaime's mouth became a grim little line. Arya wondered what he felt about the king's treatment of his sister. She wondered if he hated him for striking her and neglecting her. She bet he wanted to run him through a few times.

"You've been blessed with a kinder husband than my sister was."

When they came to the large and imposing oak door of the bedchamber, Arya was feverishly wishing it could be true.

Jaime set her on her feet. "Good luck, Lady Stark," he said with a smile. As he turned to walk away, something occurred to Arya.

"I'm not a Stark any more. I'm a Baratheon." He'd been calling her 'Stark' this whole time, even back at the feast.

Jaime glanced at her over his shoulder. "You look like a Stark to me." He smiled, and with that, he left her alone.

Arya turned and opened the chamber door slowly, holding her breath. She was still in her smallclothes; she wondered if that might displease him. She supposed it did not matter. She would be out of them soon enough, pinned beneath some panting, sweating man. Her _husband_.

Renly was already there, drinking more wine. His back was to her, and she saw he was nude. She realised that when she could not see his older, shaven face, it was easy to pretend that this was Gendry. Ignoring the fine furniture and heavy tapestries, she tried to imagine approaching him in the forge. She tried to picture more muscles in Renly's back, more sun on his flesh. She tried to recall the sound of a hammer on steel.

Renly turned halfway and nearly jumped. "Oh. My lady. You're, ah—you're h-here."

He was drunk, and sounded nervous. Arya shifted on her feet, feeling sick with self-consciousness and apprehension.

"My lord."

"Come," he slurred, bringing his cup with him and stumbling towards the bed. Arya flushed and looked down when she saw his front. She followed him nevertheless, hating how awkward and awful all of this felt.

She sat down beside him on the plush featherbed, daring only once to look him in the eye. He was bleary and rheumy with drink, all stagger and stumble.

"We must bed now," she said without thinking. Septa Mordane and her mother and her father and everyone had told her it would be so.

Renly visibly swallowed. "I—yes."

Arya frowned. Renly had always been understanding, always humorous and thoughtful. She was gambling that he might prove to be so now. "Then let's just get it done."

Renly swallowed again and looked away from her. His face was still and stiff. _Strange_, Arya thought. Most men looked on young ladies with blatant desire. She had caught sight of it herself a few times; from the king, mostly, but also from Lord Baelish, Ser Selmy, and even Tyrion Lannister at times. They all desired her, vaguely; probably because of her youth. But Renly did not look as if he desired her at all. She glanced quickly, experimentally, at his front, only to see him soft.

Arya was confused. "_You_—my lord?" she had no idea what to say now, what to do. She'd always imagined herself being played and fucked with in her marriage bed, as was the way of being a wife. She had never thought her husband would turn away from her without even the slightest hint of desire.

"It is only the wine," Renly said, his face drawn as he stared darkly into a tapestry on the wall. "Only the wine."

"They will check the sheet in the morning," Arya pointed out. "If I am not—if my blood is not"—

Renly turned a pair of sad, drunken eyes towards her. "You're beautiful," he muttered slowly, looking her up and down. "And kind and fierce. If—if I could only"—

Arya swallowed thickly. _So he doesn't desire me, then. _She could feel her throat closing, her heart speeding. "You...y-you _must_ bed me, though. Or our marriage is invalid."

Renly's lips parted, and she thought of Gendry, his mouth slanted over her own. "I'm—yes, I'll try. It is only the wine," he said again.

Renly moved towards her and suddenly he had bent his head and kissed her. The kiss was messy and wet, nothing like Gendry's. But still, she tried to pretend. She kept her eyes open, watching his hair, his face, his _remarkably similar face_, while she kissed him. _I can do this, _she thought, thinking of Gendry's wolf pin, which she had left in the care of Bran during their dance. _I can be a wife. I can love him. _

But then she felt Renly lift himself off of her. His eyes were full of panic.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I—I _can't_."

Arya glanced at his front again. He was still soft.

"What's wrong with me?" she asked abruptly; self-consciously.

Renly's eyes were wide and full of sorrow. "I only—I'm not—my love, I can't"—

Arya choked down a little gasp. "Are you—are you impotent?"

"No!" Renly said at once, his face so close. All Arya wanted to do was kiss him again, let him tangle betwixt the sheets with her, let him take her maidenhead. Let him be done with it so this nightmare of ceremony could end. She was already a wife, now; she only wanted all the tradition to be dealt with. Moreover, she was vaguely aroused now from thinking of Gendry and wanted to ease the ache in her thighs. If she was going to lay with a man and pretend he was Gendry, then Renly was the perfect person for the task.

"I am only...I am potent, but...but with..." Renly's eyes were cloudy from wine. Arya was growing impatient.

"With _what_?"she demanded.

Renly fixed her with the most tortured look she had ever seen. Between the time when he had kissed her and now, he looked as if he'd aged ten years. "My lady...I have a lover."

"A...lover." her heart had dropped. Her pride physically stung in her chest.

Renly licked his lips. "The cyvasse games with Loras...they were...they were really..."

Arya gasped and swallowed all at once. Her mind buzzed. But...he couldn't mean _that_—he simply _couldn't_. "You don't mean it," she whispered. "Not with _Loras_."

Renly's lip quivered with shame. His voice was the smallest of whispers when he replied, "Yes, my lady. It is Loras."

Tears were already clouding Arya's eyes. From the moment she had met her betrothed in Winterfell, handsome and kind and full of laughter, she had thought that perhaps he could make her happy. And when she had the misfortune to fall into a doomed love with a blacksmith, she had thought it good luck that her husband bore such strong resemblance to him. She had never considered that the strapping Renly Baratheon was a...a...

"You're a man-lover," Arya murmured. "A sodomist, impotent with women."

Renly's face reddened faster than it ever could have with wine. But he did not strike her or argue her statement. "Yes," he breathed, eyes brimming with shame.

Arya could feel a tear rolling down her Stark cheek. "I see," she said, voice strangled. Rising from the bed, caring nought for her nude breasts and stomach, she moved towards the single desk in the room.

"What are you doing?" she heard Renly call.

Arya shifted through parchment and tome before finding her goal. "Letter opener," she said quietly, lifting the blunted dagger.

She heard Renly shift in the bed before she turned around. "_Arya_, put that down!" he called out, concern obvious in his loud and determined prince's voice.

She faced him with resolution in her body. "They will need to find a stained sheet in the morning," she said, returning to her place on the bed with him and bringing the letter opener to the crease of her inner elbow. "We mustn't disappoint them."

She did not flinch as she sliced a thin, red line in her white skin, though Renly did. Rubbing the wound against the sheets, Arya lifted her arm away when she was satisfied with the blooming crimson pool. She did not know what a virgin's stain was meant to look like, but she figured a marriage bed couldn't be much bloodier.

Getting up and sliding the letter opener between two books, Arya heard Renly's hushed 'thank you.' His wine cup fell from his hand with a _clang_ to the floor beside the bed. She went and crawled into the bed beside him, bringing the thick woven covers over the both of them as he quickly drifted into a drunken sleep. Arya, however, lay awake for at least an hour, thinking of Gendry and the filthy forge and wishing more than anything that she could be there now.

The next morning, Arya was sure to smile as brightly as she could and accept the congratulations of everyone she passed on her way to Margaery Tyrell's rooms.

_xxx_

"The situation is not ideal, but it is not without possibility for remedy," Varys was saying to Arya as she sat, humiliated and quiet, beside Margaery in her chamber. Arya had absurdly been thinking of how pretty it was, what with its floaty curtains dyed orange by the candlelight and pulled back to reveal the bay below the Keep. When Arya had initially come straight from Renly's bedchamber after her disastrous wedding night, the queen-to-be seemed to know instantly why she was there, and had cryptically told her to return that evening after supper. Following her directions, Arya came to find that Margaery had dismissed all her maids, and that the only person in the room besides the two women was the eerie eunuch.

Arya lifted her eyes from her lap to stare at the spymaster. "I don't see how it could be fixed."

"Your marriage can only be set aside if you produce no heir," Margaery said smoothly. "A child, a son especially, would make you untouchable. No one could question your marriage."

"And how do you suggest I get a Baratheon heir in my belly without my husband's consent?" Arya replied sharply, hating herself, hating that the world had made her into just another woman, worrying about pregnancies and babies and marriage. "I can't exactly steal his seed off him in his sleep."

Varys' smile was calm. "Well, perhaps your husband and your child's father do not have to be the same."

Panic choked Arya quicker than she could register. She had been afraid the minute she saw the sly little eunuch in the room with Margaery, knowing his reputation. "What you suggest is treason," she replied coldly, remembering her mother's advice and trying not to be stupid and get herself involved in some court web she could never get out of.

"_Treason_ is how King Robert gained the throne," Varys reminded her patiently. "And _treason_, in this case, is what would provide you with security and Storm's End with an heir; elsewise it will simply pass to Joffrey or Tommen."

Arya liked Tommen, but she could not help her scowl at the thought of that stinking brat Joffrey having more control over the kingdom than he already did. "I thought you served the Lannisters," Arya said without thinking. Her mind had always connected Varys with the golden-haired fiends; the eunuch always seemed to be slipping around with the queen.

"I serve the realm," Varys said firmly, his face free of that queer smile for once. "Not those who rule it."

Arya shifted in her seat. "I...I still do not know what exactly it is you ask of me," she said. It wasn't entirely honest; while it was true she could not keep up with Varys and Margaery's cryptic little musings, mostly she was afraid of what they were asking her to do. "You want me to cuckold my husband? Have another man's baby and tell the world it is Renly's?"

Their silent stares told her that she was exactly right.

Arya swallowed. She absently noticed a small tremor in her hand as it gripped the arms of her chair. "Will Renly know?"

"I have spoken to your lord husband myself," Margaery said, touching Arya gently on the shoulder. "He agreed this is best. He cares for you, and does not want you to be made unsafe because of his shortcomings."

_His impotence, you mean, _Arya thought meanly, unable to feel anything but bitterness for her new husband after he made her cry tears of embarrassment in her wedding bed. She suddenly felt insulted all over again. Her 'husband' could not even speak to her about this himself, and had been making plans with Margaery behind her back to try and make up for his incompetence. "And the father of my bastard? Who will that be?"

The knowing look Margaery and Varys exchanged made Arya terrified that for a moment they would suggest the king himself, who's desire to bed his brother's young new wife had quickly become common knowledge at court. She had begun to fear the worst on instinct, and it was true that, as Renly's brother, any bastard she sired from the king would have stag's blood swimming in his veins. _One Baratheon for another, _she thought with a turn of her stomach.

"Your lover bears a strong resemblance to your husband, does he not? The blacksmith?" Varys said, calm as the ponds in the weirwood as Arya's throat closed in horror. She found she could not speak, could not respond, and could only stare back at the eunuch, knowing that what she said next could find Gendry hanging from his neck on makeshift gallows in front of the Keep.

"Arya," Margaery said quietly, squeezing her gently on the shoulder. "Arya, it's alright. Varys already knows."

"Unfortunately, I have an _awful_ habit of doing that," the eunuch said with his eerie smile. "And while I admire you courage, my lady, you have not been terribly discreet."

It took a moment for Arya's terror to subside. She swallowed, and noticed that the tremor in her hand was stronger than before. A thousand ways in which the king could put Gendry to death had flooded her mind and had only just begun to slide away. She felt like crying, though she wasn't sure why.

"I'm—yes," she managed. "They bear a-a strong resemblance."

"There is a reason for that," Varys said, looking utterly unruffled by her horrified response to his question. "He is a bastard of the king, sired nine-and-ten years ago."

Abruptly, Arya had to clap a hand to her mouth to keep from retching. Margaery cried out in concern, springing from her chair to lean over her and rub her on the back. Arya felt dizzy as she swallowed the bile, and her vision was blurry with a wetness that came from the effort. She took a minute to collect herself, to let the secret she had known all along but had refused to acknowledge or allow truly sink in. She had always wanted to dismiss his startling resemblance to Renly as coincidence. In the moments when she could have mistook one for the other, she was always begging that mayhaps Stannis had a bastard, or even Steffon, his father, before being lost at sea. She could not associate someone so wonderful, so true and honest, with the man she hated most at court. And to even believe for a moment that the latter was the father of the former was unthinkable; but terribly, awfully true.

"My lady, this is not something to curse," Varys was saying, seeming far-away. "It is very good fortune, in fact, considering the..._situation_ you have found yourself in."

"You want me to _use_ Gendry to gain an heir?" she shouted, angry and indignant that someone would suggest she exploit him for court purposes. He was the _only_ thing in her life that had absolutely nothing to do with her noble birth, and she wanted him to remain that way.

"Gendry?" Varys said, a bemused little smile on his face. Arya hated how he said the name. "Ah, yes, that _is_ the boy's name, isn't it? I'm always confusing him with Edric. But my, you're _certainly_ very familiar with him."

"As you already know," Arya spat bitterly, wondering how many times one of Varys' little spiders had seen her slip into Tobho Mott's forge, wondering if there had been a pair of eyes on she and Gendry when he confessed that he loved her and kissed her for the first time.

"Lady Arya, please. It is in your interest to listen to Varys. Renly knows about our plan, he will have no objections."

"I am leaving King's Landing in two days anyway," Arya said, her anger abating a bit. There was something very comforting about Margaery Tyrell. "Unless I can get a child in me before then, your plan will fail."

Margaery was smiling now, too. Her green-brown eyes flashed with purpose. "That is why Varys is here, Lady Arya."

Arya turned to the eunuch expectantly. "Well?"

Varys nodded his shining head. "If it please you, Lady Baratheon"—Arya flinched at the name, _hating_ it, thinking _Stark, Stark, Arya __**Stark**_, in her head—"I will send one of my contacts to the boy telling him to leave King's Landing for Storm's End at the end of the week—three days after you leave with your lord husband. He will be given enough gold to buy a horse if he does not yet have one, and he is to be given a position in the forge of your castle."

Arya's brow gathered. "Why help me? Both of you?" Here she glanced at Margaery. "What are you hoping to gain from this?"

"My family places great stock in our friends," she replied, a wry little smile on her face. "And the Lady of Storm's End is a good friend to have indeed."

Arya frowned with mistrust, but did not press the older girl for a better answer. Instead she turned to Varys expectantly.

"As I have said; I serve the realm."

"And you think getting me pregnant is what's best for the realm?"

"I think that of the potential rulers of Storm's End, you and your husband are the best, my lady."

Arya chewed the inside of her lip for a moment. Sansa would have scolded her for it, she thought absurdly. She always said it was a disgusting habit.

"Lord Varys..." Arya frowned, her brow tightening with decision. "I—yes. Yes. Follow through with your plans."

She did not know what she hoped to happen. She did not know if she even cared for maintaining her marriage to Renly. But she knew she wanted Gendry, always and forever. If the only way she could have him was as a secret lover, one she visited in the stead of her husband in order to make babies, so be it. She was already shivering, thinking of laying with him.

Margaery gave the eunuch a pointed look. "_There_. She's agreed. You may leave us now, my lord."

Varys rose from his seat and bowed before vanishing again. Arya thought absently that owning a pair of those slippers he wore might be a fine investment, considering how quiet his footsteps were.

"The hour is late," Margaery said softly, taking Arya's hand and leading her to her large bed.

"Won't they expect me to be with Renly tonight?"

Margaery smiled. "They will not mind. You are a tired new bride, after all. You should sleep. Come."

Margaery drew Arya into the bed beside her. Neither of them bothered to remove their gowns or shoes. Tormented and puzzled, Arya curled into the breast of the older girl, wondering why she had been born into a world of cruelty and force and dishonesty. If she had been Miss Arya, the lowborn girl she had wanted to be, she could have married Gendry and they could have slept in a shoddy apartment above his forge. She could've had his coal-headed babies and made love to him on his cot at the smithy. She could've loved him _properly_.

Arya felt Margaery's hand on her head. The older girl stroked her hair lovingly, reminding Arya of her mother.

"Everything will be perfect," Margaery whispered. "And you will be happy. I promise, my sweet."


End file.
